Khandan

I had so many expectations from this film, but as they say, great expectations, great disappointments. There were so many reasons I was excited about this film. First it had a cast that included Sunil Dutt, Nutan, Lalita Pawar and Mumtaz. It had music composed by Ravi. And most importantly, it is a film of the 1960s (Hindi cinema's golden era). And then I watched it, and frankly, I wish I hadn't. Even if the story of Khandan had been good or at least decent, it couldn't have been more than average given the poor writing. The film is overly melodramatic and contains all the possible clichés a film could have. The dialogues are cheesy and therefore most of the actors are not able to deliver memorable performances. But wait, the film is not a total waste of time. I do admit that I found it completely unwatchable at some points, but there are some pluses as well. First, Ravi's soundtrack is fantastic, so the songs are actually the sequences which did not ask for a FF effect. Then, Nutan. In a melodramatic fare like this, thank God for a Nutan, who always manages to hold her own with her natural acting which seems to be completely unaffected by the exaggerated proceedings. The same cannot be said about Sunil Dutt, who, though playing a fairly challenging role with noted sincerity, suffered from the poor script which made his character look annoyingly self-victimising. Lalita Pawar was fine, and that's because she was an actress of rare ability to make any hysterical mother likable and funny. It also had Mumtaz who was really attractive but whose acting was weak for the reasons mentioned above. Anyway, if you have not watched it yet, I don't recommend it to you, but if you still want to catch it, then don't expect much because you will be disappointed, maybe as much as I was.