The family Thanksgiving get-together this year is going to be awk-ward: Parvarish*

I won't lie. I ordered this movie from a nehaflix sale bin because I wanted to see my FPMFIL again. It's been awhile since Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and...I miss him. And I swear it has nothing to do with the insanely tight flared trousers.

But every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed bad boy with a coconut-shell grenade, na?


What I enjoyed most about this movie, apart from the delightfully masala plot and thoroughly effective cast, were our two fun-lovin' heroines, who showed considerable oomph, their questionable ethics notwithstanding. They have two great dance numbers, one in which they rip off the citizens of Mumbai while wearing crazy 70s patched pants

and one in which they dance with guns on a stage decorated with guns and famous buildings of India. The guns, in context, make perfect sense; the buildings do not, but I really like them and would gladly prop a few up in my yard.


There are many details in this movie that should not be overlooked, such as the totally awesome submarine that the bad guys are in.

C'mon, just go ahead and throw in the rubber duckie for fun, eh effects crew? Towards the end of the film our heroes put on scuba suits and go after this thing, and the shot of their little vessel chugging along behind the submarine is very funny - the scale is completely wrong.


Kader Khan, who did the movie's dialogues, plays "Supremo," otherwise known as - wait for it - the head bad guy. Here he is in his submarine office, complete with the seldom-seen Condensed Southern Hemisphere/USSR Swallows Saudi Arabia Projection world map.


But oh my friends, la pièce de résistance: a villain lair that Bloefeld himself would be proud to call his summer home.

It is comlpete with a Pit of Doom (I think it's supposed to be quicksand, but it's hard to say - it's not sharks with frickin' laser beams strapped to their heads, although lord knows it should be) with moving walkway/ramp and silhouetted dancing girls who dance, dance, dance no matter what chaos is happening elsewhere in the lair. This has turned into a seriously good Bollywood + James Bond weekened here at BLB, and I couldn't be more pleased - it's a fitting way to gear up for the release of Casino Royale in a few weeks, about which I am v eager.

Anyway. This is a really fun movie and features, in addition to the above selling points, an orphan, a school for the blind, Vinod Khanna driving a vintage white Mustang, Shabana Azmi dressed like Laverne/Shirley, and some arm wrestling. Who could ask for anything more?

Amitabh is totally on board.

Aside: continuing with this weekend's discussion-in-my-head about Bollywood remakes, I want to remake this movie with Akshaye and Abhishek and Rani and Karisma and Rishi Kapoor as the bad guy and Farida Jalal as the mom and, oh, I don't know, Big B as the dad, just for the wink-wink fun. (Also Army of Monkeys gets to be the random white guy, 'cause I think he'd have fun playing a role originated by Tom Alter.)

* Have I gone too far with the riffing on the FPMBF joke? It's too far, isn't it? Sigh. Knowin' when to hold 'em never has been my strong suit. But trust me, in this scene, when he strolls in, totally owning the white pants, even though you can tell he knows he looks good, you have to lurve him.