One day, it dawned upon Harmesh Malhotra that naagins and beens -- remember Sridevi writhing all over the floor of some haveli -- couldn't charm audiences any longer. After spending many sleepless nights, he finally hit upon a clever plan. He'd heard about a director called Dhawan or something, touted as the man with the `Midas' touch. But he couldn't figure out why everyone was raving about the David Dhawan-Govinda team. So Harmeshji decided to do a `me too' and hired Rajiv Kaul and Praful Parekh to come up with a script. Then he signed on all the Dhawan regulars -- Govinda, Kader Khan, Johny Lever. But since he didn't want it to look like a case of mistaken identity, he decided to call his film Dulhe Raja instead of Dulha No 1 or Raja No 1.So what do you have? Business tycoon K K Singhania (Kader Khan) lives in a garishly done-up mansion and owns a five-star hotel, with a manager (Johny Lever) who spends all his time sitting on telephone poles and making crank calls to just about anyone. A dhabawala,Raja (Govinda) runs his establishment in the compound of K K's hotel when he's not flirting with his daughter Kiran (Raveena Tandon).
Raja becomes K K's enemy number one, and both get busy with their game of one-upmanship. Kiran, in the interim, has fallen in love with a boxer-type called Rahul (Mohnish Behl), who is after her father's millions. When K K refuses to accept Rahul as his damaad, Kiran decides to teach her father a lesson and informs him that she's planning to tie the knot with Raja instead.The hard-core filmi villain that he is, Rahul abducts Kiran and it is upto Papaji, Managerji and Dulheji to rescue her from his clutches.
Poor Govinda finds himself going through the motions of the same old obscene one-liners, pelvic thrusts and gyrations to incomparably tragic music. While he still manages to do a decent job, he cannot hold this slip-shod film on his chubby shoulders. As for Raveena, you cannot figure out whether she's doing a Salaakhen, a Gharwali Baharwali or just being herself. MaybeHarmeshji should trying doing a Subhash Ghai or a Yash Chopra rip-off the next time round. At least we can console ourselves with some great locales, lively music, nice clothes and attractive faces.
Director: Harmesh Malhotra
Starring: Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Kader Khan, Johny Lever and Mohnish Behl
Showing at: Dreamland
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
