King Uncle is one of Rakesh Roshan's lesser-known films and it's considered to be one of his worst, but I like it. I watched it as a kid and found it thoroughly fun and entertaining. Based partly on Annie, the film is nowhere a quality film, the production values are quite poor even for a big-scale director like Rakesh Roshan, and the script doesn't really provide anything fresh or particularly credible, although it has twists and later on it even adds up some moments of suspense. The film's often childish energy often makes it into quite a watchable family/children film. This is true of many other films by Roshan, including Karan Arjun, Koyla, Koi Mil Gaya, all of which have great heroes, plain caricatures for villains, childish dialogue and so on - in this regard this film, which has all of it, caters to the simple-minded audience (don't get me wrong, I mean it in a good way) and thus really often works for kids just as it worked for me when I was a kid.
Take the film's leading actor as evidence to that. He is Jackie Shroff, in my view normally one of the most unaffected and authentic leading actors in Hindi cinema at the time. Here he gets a very uncommon role and he clearly enjoys playing it, and he also clearly directs his performance to the younger, more unassuming viewers. Shroff is wonderful as the goofy, clumsy and crabby man whose personality changes with the entrance of a bubbly orphaned girl into his house (sounds familiar, I know). The writing lets him down, however, when all of a sudden, he transforms into this confident, outgoing man. This is exactly why, unless seen as a simple family film, this film doesn't make much sense. But it partially works and even picks up and gains some tension towards the end. The supporting cast includes Anu Agarwal, Nagma, and Shah Rukh Khan, who is wonderfully awkward in one of his early films. Pooja Ruparek is decent as the girl. Can't recommend the film, but you might find it a good go as a family watch at your own cost.
