Maharaja

Maharaja is a so-so film with some really nice songs but with a crappy-beyond-imagination plot.

The story is about Govinda, a royal prince whose parents get killed by a sleazy goofball and he is made to run away and grow up in the jungles. He grows up to be a simple, naive and good-hearted young man who can only understand the animals but not the humans. He does not have a feel of the real world outside the jungle and is easily influenced by everyone. The arrival of a TV reporter played by Manisha Koirala into the jungles makes it only worse but he falls in love with her. She also reciprocates but then Govinda realises how he lost his parents and how he was dethroned and sets out to take revenge against the villain.

The plot is pretty old-fashioned and looks outdated, especially in the late 90's. But the songs of this film are a plus point. The title track is a gem and so is 'Jab Tum Aa Jaate Ho Samne'. It really shows the magic of the Nadeem-Shravan duo.

Govinda turns in a serious performance after almost a decade of his acting career. Sadly, he couldn't do justice to it. Still, he's likable in parts. Manisha Koirala looks heavy as ever and totally sucks at comedy. It might be a relief for her fans who are fed up of watching her perform in serious roles. But she totally lacked the magic touch of her '1942 A Love Story' and 'Khamoshi' days. Shakti Kapoor is okay and Salim Ghouse makes a menacing villain.

Overall, just watch Maharaja for the songs or even better rent a CD of this film to listen to its songs.

Maharaja is a exceptional movie made by Director Anil Sharma who makes many big films. Its a little bit of a fairy tale of Govinda who is a gifted child who has powers which include hypnotising animals. The movie is just not about Govinda and his powers, but has some revenge storyline involved. The bad guy in this film kills Govinda's mum, dad, grandma, auntie and even two little girls. Its rare to see Govinda in a serious action role that Amitabh has played in the past of the angry young man type character. Govinda does a good job, although he is not angry through the whole film. The title song is brilliant sung by the great Udit narayan. Govinda delivers a fine performance in this movie and should of played more serious roles. Manisha is OK, The bad guy in this film gives a good performance as the cold blooded disturbed sick bad guy. This film would of been a Super Hit, but it does have some flaws. The graphics are not great at all, where Govinda communicates with animals looks like a clip of a wild life documentary. The middle part of the film, based in the jungle is slow and a little boring. The love story part is poor, but the action background overall is a decent entertaining movie.

You shouldn't expect too much sense of the story, nor too high production values.

This is an old-fashioned adventure movie with a story not to be taken too serious. The bad guys are really very bad and depraved, and the good guys are similarly very brave and noble.

However, if you watch the film with these things in mind, you won't be disappointed. It's simply great fun, and has some good comic relief side stories too.

The erotic content is rather risqué by Bollywood standards, in addition to the standard dancing with wet clothes we also get some overt kissing.