In the Good Old days when Men were Men and the only form of entertainment in India was good old’ Doordarshan and the local cinema, life for movie-goers was much simpler. We had the “true Masala Movie” which had 3 hours worth of song-and-dance sequences , multi-talented hero, dishum-dishum and melodrama . The director generally wanted the end result to be a cinematic masterpiece but it usually ended up looking a bit over-the-top. Nevertheless these were mostly entertaning and harmless.
But these days such movies are a dying breed with alien concepts like “socially relevant topics”, “parallel cinema” , “bold movies” or the like infiltrating to the very heart of Bollywood. Some of the movies are restricted to 2 hours in length! We are actually getting to see movies without a single song-and-dance sequence! Blasphemy!
Now the only masala movies that are still around the faux-masala movies like “Main Hoon Na “ or “Bunty and Bubly “ which have all the characteristics but cannot be called as such because even the directors acknowledge that are meant to imitate the true masala movies and are even promoted as such . In fact the only recent True Masala movie I’ve seen is “Garv Pride and honour”….oh yes , the masala movie should also have a fearsome and awe-inspiring title ( Sholay (Flames) , Shaan(Pride) , Waqt Hamara Hai (The time is ours) or my personal favourite… Jaanbaaz)
Garv-Pride and honour
Salman Khans as the Indian Dirty Harry-Shoot first , ask questions later
Menacing one-liners- “C.M sahib , is umer main haddi toot jate hain , to asane se nahi judte hain “ ( Broken bones don’t mend easily at this age )..and than the C.M gets kicked in the chest.
- Shilpa Shetty as the bar dancer with a heart of gold
To show the would-be foe the his days are numbered , Salman does a weird gesture with his hands
Single handily takes out the villain inside his own hideout with his bare hands
Mohra (The pawn)
The pinnacle of 90s masala movies . Akshay Kumar as the Good Cop. like in all masala movies, his father- another police inspector was shot down by the bad guys. In comes Vishal (Shetty), whose sister was cruelly raped and murdered by the goons. The daughter of the Jailor, Roma (Raveena) supposedly does journalism . Naseeruddin Shah as the one who inspires Shetty to take revenge .
meaningless fight scenes with tons of fake blood.
Mandatory item numbers-Mast Mast ( Remember how Ravenna got labelled as the “Mast mast girl??) and of course “Tip Tip Barish “
Costume designing at its very best with both heroes in the ubiquitous white sneakers , blue jeans and open shirts .
Impossible fight sequences with both heroes jumping out of exploding buildings , moving buses , etc .
An impressive cast of villans , mouthing bombastic dialogues : Gulshan Grover, Raza Murad, Paresh Rawal …’’Tum to bomb nahi sex-bomb ho’’
Sholay (Flames)
The mother of all Masala Movies . Our very own Spaghetti western ( or should I be Tandoori western ?). Two convicts and small time crooks (Amitabh and Dharmendra) are picked by Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar), a former police officer, to seek vengeance on the dangerous bandit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) because he killed all of Thakur’s family (except a daughter-in-law) and maimed Thakur for life.
Over-the-top performances by almost everyone in most of the scenes.
End-of-movie Dance In The Villains Den that reminds us that the bad guy is soon going to reach an unpleasant end.
Intermingled love stories
Action sequences
Of course who could forget the Manly Dialouges .. “Yeh ahhat nahin , phansi kke phanda hain!”( ’These aren’t arms, they’re your noose’).
”Yeh haat mujhe de Thakur!”(Give me your hand Thakur !)
Who can ever forget Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh
Shaan ( Pride)
DSP Shiv Kumar (Sunil Dutt) is police officer who lives with his wife (Raakhee), a son, and two brothers, Ravi (Shashi Kapoor), and Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), who are con-men, and will anything for a quick buck. When Shiv Kumar is killed, his wife widowed, Ravi and Vijay give up their non-chalant way of life, to find out who killed their brother, and avenge his death. Little do they know that the very forces that assist them now, will turn them in to the man who killed their brother - none other than the seemingly invincible Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda).
Shakal would give any James Bond villan a run for their money… He even had a pet Alligator to whom he would feed his unsuspecting foes
The best End-of-movie Dance In The Villains Den ever…”Yamma Yamma !”
Some genuinely good action sequence…they way Sunil Dutt gets captured , the helicopter chase.
Karan Arjun
Rebirth to the Max! After sending Karan and Arjun (Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan) to their makers in typical filmi isthlye , Evil Villain ( Amresh Puri) though he could lead the easy life…but little did he realise that he would have to face them again in their reincarnated forms .
Villain meets his own end in the same hideous manner
Reincarnations are born at the same time the two heroes meet their premature end
Flashbacks of the previous lives in negative
Kajols infamous dance in the stables
Inane dialogues - ”Thakur to Gayo !”(Thakur is going to get it !)
Others:
Waqt Hamara Hai
Qurbani
Jaanbaaz
Jigar
p.s. For reasons mentioned above , Bunty aur Babli and Main hoon Na “ cannot be considered as True Masala Movies, that’s why I haven’t included them .