You know Ketan Mehta has actually made a film that can be tolerated and’Aar Ya Paar’ happens to be that film. The same director has made films(if they can be called that) such as the feeble’Oh Darling Yeh Hai India’ and the Sex circus’Maya Memsaab’ but who can forget the wonderful’Mangal Pandey’ which makes a mockery of a supposed’freedom fighter’
Of course I personally find a film such as’Aar Ya Paar’ of real interest to myself because it goes way beyond the commercial’dit darts’ of film making in India and anything thats innovative and creative, I seem to have a liking for.
The story revolves around a debt ridden Jackie Shroff whose only interest in life seems to be partying like an animal, spending more than he earns and sleeping with a different woman every night. Suddenly he comes across a lady who happens to be a millionaire socialite and gets a job to handle her finances. Now since he’s debt ridden and the lady isn’t too bad in terms of looks he begins to’woo’ her in the hope that she will get married to him and all his financial headache will be solved. She does give in, she does marry him but does Jackie get out of his financial problems? No and the reason for that is the wife is too clever for him.
On his honeymoon, Shroff begins to get close to a his wife’s geeky assistant played by Deepa Sahi. Of course Sex being used as a weapon, Shroff realises that his wife’s will states that incase of her death the inheritence will be split between two people - the husband and the assistant. Meanwhile at regular intervals, you realise this geeky assistant who now happens to be roaming around showing almost every organ visable on her body, isn’t what she seems to be but since he is so brainwashed about the 300 crores available in the will, he plots to kill her with the help of Deepa, which he does. A police case follows but its main pointer happens with the twist, while Shroff is busy closing up all leads so that the murder does not come back to haunt him with the law, however madam assistant and her fiance - who you are made aware of - have other plans.
Now Shroff has to decide whether he goes’Aar ya Paar’ - the greed got so much that if he doesn’t benefit, he wont let anyone else either.
A real thriller this film, engrossing, excellent dialogues and the way its story is told makes you wonder that 12 years on, why oh why we cannot have these kind of stories be put up by the Indians in Mumbai.
As always Ketan Mehta will always strip his girlfriend(wife now) naked as he did in’Maya Memsaab’ and make no mistake, that can be seen here. She happened to be a good performer who never really made it big or maybe that was because Mr Mehta wanted all the fun for himself. The only problem with this movie is that the rest of the cast doesn’t really have much to do and those who are acting a bit are acting’not very well’ - take for example the socialite played by Kamal Sidhu whom we never saw again, bit part girlfriend played Ritu Shivpuri who the less said is better and even Paresh Rawal was acting a little weird here, trying to be funny but simply not!
However all can be forgiven because the main man, is the main man and the main man happens to be an actor whom I consider to be one of the most natural performers of Bollywood. Jackie Shroff is the reason that this film is worth atleast a one time watch, a performance which he himself must be proud of. He happens to have a scene in the film where he plots the murder of his wife, his mannerisms are unique yet you relate to him perfectly. So sad to see so less of him these days because he’s better than the majority of the junk we see every Friday. TOP MAN
I will mention the music because it happens to be done by one of my favourite music directors of the 90s Viju Shah -’Mann chaahe sanam’, ’dil diya’ and one of my favourite pieces of all time’pyar karr deedar karr’ all are great to listen too and well picturised.
Ketan Mehta - I hate this guy, I dont know whether I’ve only noticed this but he seems to have a knack of trying to ruin superstars’ careers with bogus efforts of film making but with this you think that if he did make more in the mould of this film, maybe he could’ve had a successful career as a director and not a’CHAVAL’ one he ended up having.
As always I can’t force anyone to watch a film but I will say for Bollywood fans that if you ever come across it and you have nothing else to do, give it a try. its certainly worth one!