Lage Raho Munna Bhai, 2006
Directed by: Rajkumar Hirani
Produced by: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Starring: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Dilip Prabhavalkar
It's Kinda Like: Comedy gangster movie meets Guy Pretends to be a Professional _____ meets Guy Is Reborn as Prophet movie
Most of these movies I've been reviewing (and seeing) have tended to be of the Romantic Comedy/Drama/Musical variety. Hard to tell whether that's due to my general proclivities, or the tastes of the Bollywood film industry at large (I think it's probably the former, but who knows). BUT this one is different.
Okay, it's kind of a romantic comedy. BUT it's also a comedy gangster film! It's a sequel, apparently, to the first Munna Bhai film. (At my library, you gotta grab from the Hindi section quick; high high demand means there never seems to be the same thing there twice.) And, let me ask you this: how many comedy gangster films involve a guy seeing the ghost of Gandhi? GANDHI. This is probably the most philosophical comedy gangster film you will ever see.
Sanjay Dutt (who kind of reminds me of a chunky Indian Bruce Willis) plays Munnabhai, friendly and personable underworld denizen, a guy who, you know, gets stuff done. He and his short, gold-chain-wearing, trigger-happy sidekick Circuit (yes, Circuit) do things like, you know, obtain property illegally and otherwise take care of business on the shady streets of Mumbai. And, they also have comically misunderstood adventures: apparently in the first Munna Bhai movie, he masquerades as a doctor in order to save face with his family back home.
In this film, they're charged with obtaining the deed to some land, in order to make a big deal with a developer. But Munnabhai is distracted: he's in luuuuururrrrve! Every day he drives his bike out to the pier and listens to the radio show hosted by Jhanvi (Vidya Balan), who of course begins her show with "GoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING MUMBAAAAIII!" (Ah, the borrowing.)
One day, Jhanvi announces that there's going to be a quiz contest about Gandhi, on the day honoring his birth, and the winner gets to meet her and go on the air! Of course Munnabhai MUST win. So Circuit rounds up a bunch of Gandhi experts (at gunpoint, of course), and menial thugs to dial handfuls of phones each, and this vast operation ensures that Munnabhai will win!
Of course, on air he ends up pretending he's a professor of Gandhi studies (like one of the guys they had rounded up), and then of course, impressed by his vast knowledge, she invites him to give a talk about Gandhi at the house where she lives with her "children": her father and a bunch of other elderly men he's taken in, who are alone or who have been rejected or neglected by their successful children. This place is called "Second Innings House," and the prevailing spirit is, go for broke -- you only have one life to live, and you're still alive, right?
In order to cram for his Gandhi talk, he goes to the Gandhi library and reads for days and days until - - - Gandhi himself appears! With an invisible Gandhi in tow, he heads slightly more confidently to her house.
This is where the film begins to transition more strongly from Comedy Gangster Film to Philosophical Comedy, and becomes much the better for it. Munnabhai, with the prospect of gaining the woman he loves, and the confidence of an invisible guru, begins living for and inspiring the principles by which Gandhi lived. I don't think I'll ever see another comedy that so eloquently displays the principles of nonviolence and passive resistance.
Of course, along the way there are hilarious shenanigans involving him pretending to be a bigshot professor; it's still a comedy, after all! And, although it doesn't really come through in the subtitles, Munnabhai and pals speak in slangy, vulgar Mumbai street dialect, which further belies his claims to be a scholar. That slangy dialect is apparently what made the film so popular and Gandhi-ism so cool and relevant for the Kids Of Today.
Because apparently (according to everyone's best source, Wikipedia), the film "has had a strong cultural impact in India, popularising Gandhism under Munna Bhai's notion of Gandhigiri [his word describing Gandhi's principles]. As noted by critics, the film has 'stirred the popular imagination,' leading to a number of Gandhigiri protests in India and in the United States." Neat, huh? Comedy as social change.
By living unstintingly by Gandhi's teachings, Munnabhai deals with his own problems -- his budding romance, his task of illegal repossession, his crazy violent boss (the very funny Lucky Singh, played by Boman Irani) -- as well as the problems of other people in the city, both in the Second Innings house, and across Mumbai via his OWN new call-in radio program.
(And oh yeah, there are songs too, which are mostly cute and funny, and shoehorned in there because you have to have songs in a movie. Like this one:)
Verdict: I gotta say, I thought this movie would be pretty dumb, and it kept getting both funnier and better as it went on. I plan to see the first one, just to get some background, but this movie definitely stands on its own without the first, as a comedy and as a film about sticking to your guns (ha ha) and changing your community with honesty and nonviolence. I know, whaaa? But seriously. I enjoyed it!
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