I started watching Hum a little over two weeks ago. I watched half an hour, then turned it off, and only the last couple nights have I gotten around to watching the rest. I was planning on making a real review of this complete with screencaps, but I just can’t stand to.
(IMDB) Bhaktawar (Danny Denzongpa) is a criminal mastermind, and his most active territory is the dockyard. He constantly gets irritated by the dockyard’s union leader, Tiger (Amitabh Bachchan), and only tolerates him, because Tiger’s dad is his bodyguard. During a confrontation between Tiger and Bhaktawar, Bhaktawar is reportedly killed, and Tiger has to run for his life, this time from the police, even abandoning his love Jumalina Gonsalves (Kimi Katkar). Years later, Tiger surfaces as a bespectacled mild-mannered man, with two younger brothers (Rajnikant & Govinda), one of whom is a police inspector. Soon the past catches up with Tiger.
Why did it take me so long to watch it? It’s an Amitabh Bachchan masala film, what’s not to love?
One of the main reasons – the treatment of women. The character Jhumma gets lifted up and flipped upside down after she put the coin down her top, then when fighting with Tiger in some mud gets her top ripped off. She later gets guys panting all over her, and her clothes start falling apart when she gets sprayed by a giant hose.
Though she is a strong character, seeing how Tiger and Jhumma fell in love (skirt lifting, mud wrestling, blouse ripping, giant-hose-that-tears-off-your-clothes) was just… ‘Eh?’ In the second half of the film, however, we have a real strong character in the form of Tiger’s sister-in-law. She was the woman of the house. A traditional wife on the outside, firecracker on the inside. Hell, she even got to yell at a big name general. It’s really strange how the two halves of the film could be so different.
Amitabh’s character Tiger was another reason it took me so long to watch Hum. In the first half, not the second. In the first half he was a drunk, he was womanizer, he was a ruffian. He was not a very likable guy.
In the second half of the film? He’s really sweet. There were only two scenes in the second half that irked me (aside from every time Anupam Kher was on screen being god awfully annoying). One was where Amitabh was pretending to be a general (talk about annoying!).
The second being the scene where Govinda and Rajnikant dance/fight/grind disturbingly to some cracked remix of the Batman theme. I must say that out of all the questionable scenes in the film (top getting ripped off, the giant hose, woman and her daughter getting set on fire, Amitabh as the drunken ruffian, etc, etc) this is the one that bothered me the most. I know, I don’t understand it either. It’s on YouTube:
If only the first half of the film was like the second half, minus the Batman mix. The second half had a scene that actually made me cry! Jhumma and Tiger getting reunited was just so sweet!
Even though I found Anupam Kher to be awfully annoying to the point where I wanted to fast forward through every scene he was in, it was interesting to see how he – the comic relief – morphed into the true villain of the film. Danny Denzongpa played the criminal mastermind, but in the end I felt bad for him. Anupam Kher’s character was such a disgusting individual.
One of the best parts of the film (the reason I even got this film!), even though I’m still a little, ‘EH?’ over the giant hose:
I’m a little confused on how the two halves of the film could be so different. I really liked the second half, but really did not like the first half.
Rating: 2.5/5
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