Chhupa Rustam (2001)
Starring: Sanjay Kapoor Manisha Koirala Mamta Kulkarni
Director: Aziz Sejawal
Music Director: Anand Milind
Synopsis: Manisha's career takes another nosedive with this convoluted rot
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

This is something of a dinosaur of a movie, having languished on the shelf for what seems like an eternity before finally sneaking into cinemas last week with neither fanfare nor publicity to announce its arrival.

Raja (Sanjay Kapoor) loves Nisha (Manisha Koirala) but is little more than a two-penny sadak chaap from Mumbai. Nirmal (also Sanjay Kapoor), meanwhile, is the London-returned stepson of Navneet Nishan, arriving back in India to attend to family business before flying home once again. During his travels he encounters a tea-plucking, voluptuous village belle (Mamta Kulkarni) working on one of his plantations.

The inevitable happens.

He falls hopelessly under the spell of this buxom beauty.

Unfortunately, it is all handled in the most hideously cliched and charmless fashion imaginable.

One could perhaps imagine Asha Parekh or Saira Banu indulging in such antics during their heyday with a certain degree of innocence and charm. Watching Mamta Kulkarni, however, gyrating her ample bosom in every conceivable direction merely leaves one wondering whose idea this exercise in questionable taste actually was.

Naturally, Nirmal remains blissfully unaware that he is surrounded by the customary assortment of wicked uncles, crooked managers and—lest there be any lingering doubt—a syrupy sweet but thoroughly venomous stepmother. To this merry collection of villains is added the thoroughly corrupt Bheem Thapa (Raj Babbar), who conspires with Raja to eliminate Nirmal and relieve him of both his fortune and his estate.

Eventually Nirmal discovers that his father was murdered rather than killed in an accident and begins investigating the truth. Since his scheming stepmother was responsible for the murder in the first place, she promptly arranges for Nirmal to disappear as well.

Celebrations ensue.

The wicked triumvirate rejoices in Nirmal's apparent demise while the evil stepmother even finds time to mistreat her own daughter before dispatching her to boarding school.

Needless to say, the inevitable happens once again.

"Nirmal" returns to thwart all their wicked schemes.

Naturally, we already know that this is actually Raja masquerading as Nirmal while plotting to seize the estate for himself. What follows is an extended game of cat and mouse between our assorted villains and their increasingly implausible opponent, complete with enough twists, turns and mistaken identities to keep matters ticking over until everything is finally resolved.

This grotesque aberration feels like one of those old Vinod Khanna B-movies from the 1970s somehow wandering into the twenty-first century. It frankly defies logic that a film like this could still be made today.

The plot is fantastical, convoluted and overflowing with the most cliched of clichés.

That, in itself, is not necessarily a criticism. Some of the most entertaining Hindi films have been built upon exactly those ingredients, provided they possess enough style, conviction or charismatic performances to carry them through. Madan Mohla himself produced the utterly preposterous but hugely entertaining Ameer Garib starring Dev Anand and Hema Malini.

Sadly, Sanjay Kapoor possesses neither the personality nor the screen presence required to make this convoluted affair remotely engaging.

One really has to wonder why an intelligent actress like Manisha Koirala agreed to appear in a film such as this. It was made after Bombay, so it can hardly be argued that she desperately needed the work. She has little more than two songs and three scenes before reappearing for a climax that is hilarious—though almost certainly not intentionally so. One also suspects she may have been fulfilling a sponsorship deal for a lingerie manufacturer because she spends much of the film dressed in a manner that leaves remarkably little to the imagination.

Mamta Kulkarni...

Well...

...perhaps the less said, the better.

Years ago she confidently proclaimed that she would dethrone Manisha Koirala and become Hindi cinema's leading heroine.

It was all rather optimistic.

One glance at this performance explains perfectly why those ambitions never materialised. She can try as hard as she likes but the simple truth is that she just doesn't have it. Not only is she no great beauty—that would be a considerable exaggeration—but she appears determined to maintain the same heavily made-up, tarty appearance regardless of scene, character or situation. Her principal appeal is likely to be confined to the front-bench audience enthusiastically applauding her dance routines.

Mind you, Manisha herself sinks to surprisingly similar depths on more than one occasion and emerges with rather little dignity intact.

Mamta may have the larger role but the film derives absolutely no benefit from it.

Raj Babbar's character is an almost complete waste of time. Navneet Nishan, meanwhile, seems to relish every deliciously camp moment as the wicked stepmother.

Aziz Sejawal's direction is simply dreadful.

In truth, there scarcely appears to have been any direction at all.

Could it have been any worse?

Anand-Milind contribute one or two reasonably pleasant songs but they disappear without trace into this cinematic monstrosity.

Finally, hats off to the editor for trimming the running time below the average Bollywood length.

It simply meant less suffering for the audience.

One to avoid.