Judaai

Judaai a serious family drama with romance and comedy. In short cut, this movie is about a Girl who loves a married man with kids so much, she makes the wife an offer. The offer is that she becomes the second wife, they live happily and the first wife gets 2 crore (Million). The offer gets accepted after a few incidents. What follows is a little serious scenes and a few comedy scenes. Anil Kapoor gives a great performance, but his character is so stingy. He works as an engineer with decent wages, but doesn't buy basic household things including a Television. This is not realistic, this kind of character must be a bore. But, the director has managed to make him look like a Great fellow, no one but me is complaining (and his first wife). Sridevi (Anil's real life sister in law) plays his first wife who adores money and reputation. Sridevi is one of my old time favourites and delivers a Brilliant performance. She should of received Best actress rather then the pathetic Karishma Kapoor in Raja Hindustani that year, famous for bribing awards. Urmila is a talented actress in a good performance. We have Three Great comedians in Superb roles including Kader Khan, Paresh Rawail and Johnny Lever. This is worth the watch.

For viewers looking for a somewhat traditional Bollywood movie, I would not hesitate to recommend this movie. Viewers do need to keep their expectations in check as there are some aspects that may seem unrealistic. The main plot is also rather dragged out but the various sub plots involving the comedians do add humour and good entertainment value.

Sridevi plays the role exceptionally well and it is difficult to see anyone any actress playing this role as well as she does. She naturally adds humour to the character and towards the end acts the role of a desperate wife rather well. Urmila and Anil Kapoor also play their roles well.

The movie is a standard 3 hour watch, but time quickly flies by and the soundtrack is rather catchy. Overall this is a must watch!

Judaai is not bad at all for what it is - a typical Hindi movie. I actually saw it back in the day but I just re-watched it, and thought it deserved a good review.

The story is quite interesting, albeit a little over the top. The acting from Sridevi and Urmila is very good. The part Sridevi plays is a tough one but she holds up amazingly well. Urmila's role is more generic but her acting is still worth mentioning. Anil Kapoor does OK. There are a good number of side actors, mostly comedians, who do a good job as well. The soundtrack isn't bad overall even though I only really liked two of the songs. Finally, I thought the dialog was very good, almost unexpectedly so.

If you enjoy Hindi movies from the 90s this is a shoe in.

'Judaai' falls under the category of weird Bollywood cinema. Well, weird in the sense that the story is unconventional, ironic and sort of a dramedy. I'll start with the negative points. To make the plot more concise the film could have done with a lot of editing. The comedy involving Kader Khan, Johny Lever and Paresh Rawal should have been deleted as both are mind-numbingly irritating. Though Kader Khan does (and is the only one to) make you laugh. The repetitive background music (especially the one derived from the title song) gets irritating at points.

The songs, though very pleasant to the ears, appear out of place and slightly slow down the pace. Besides what's the point of shooting songs in Europe or America if the whole story is set in India? On top of that the choreography is terrible! Both Sridevi and Urmila (being Bollywood's example of sheer talent) are also known for their graceful dancing abilities and this is wasted with poor choreography. Cinematography could be better. It appears very flat. Direction is brilliant at some places but amateurish at others.

Performance wise, Anil's performance is the usual. The actor has nothing new to offer but he performs okay. Actually, it would have been more interesting to see Sanjay Dutt (apparently Anil had asked him to do the film) to play the part. Supporting cast by Poonam Dhillon and Farida Jalal are strictly OK. Now what makes this movie worth watching is Sridevi and Urmila Matondkar. Sridevi plays a character that's never been played by an actress in cinema. The character is full of layers, one that we both laugh at and pity and Miss Sridevi just makes acting look easy. Urmila Matondkar is probably the only actress to have worked with Sridevi and deliver a memorable performance (unlike others like Jaya Prada, Padmini Kolhapure...who's performances have vanished into oblivion). Rumour had it that both actresses were taking a serious risk that would put their career in the drain. But then, it is their risk taking that has contributed to the fact that they are willing to experiment and this only shows the true actress they are. These were two of the best performances of the year but not surprisingly, they got ignored by the awards.

So, is 'Judaai' worth watching? Yes. Keep your remote close by to fast-forward the comedy track as I can assure that you won't be missing much or just watch the first Johnny Lever sequence to see if he's funny at all. I for one, find him extremely irritating and unfunny.

Though the plot is predictable and simple. But Sridevi's acting was great. Anil and Urmila we're good too. Though story was not that good but 8 stars for Sridevi. Songs are good too.