I Should Declare "War" on Yudh! (Yudh (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	Yudh (DVD)
Date:	26/08/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice to see a young Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor

Disadvantages: Poor and way over-used storyline

Yudh is a Bollywood (Hindi language) film.


PLOT BASICS

Inspector Vikram handles a criminal case in which the Public Prosecutor Avinash is accused of being the murderer by the accused and even Vikram's love interest Anita claims that Avinash is guilty. When it's proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it can't be Avinash, things get rather complicated as it all leads back to Vikram's mother Savitri and events that occurred in her life decades ago. What has Anita to do with all this too? Why is she accusing Avinash of being a criminal when he's such a respected advocate?


ANALYSIS

Yudh was released in 1985 and was typical of many Bollywood films of that era. A plot which involved babies being kidnapped and brought up by other people only for it all to come out decades later where one has maybe turned out bad, one has turned out good and one has turned out hopeless (there's a red herring in there somewhere). There's usually a policeman in the mix or some sort of law enforcer and you can usually see the ending coming a mile off. It's a formula that seemed to work well for a long time in Bollywood (why else would they use it so many times?) and maybe this film was a success at the time of release but to me, it was a tired formula which was way overdone and got quite boring.

I watched Yudh because it starred two actors I quite respect - Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor. Shroff plays Vikram the police inspector and Kapoor plays Avinash. The two are firm friends and Avinash becomes very attached to Vikram's mother who gives him the affection he missed from not having his own mother around. From the first time we see Avinash on screen with Vikram's mother Savitri (played by Nutan) one can tell there's something there that we're not being told and of course, it worked out just as I guessed which happened a lot during the film which I found annoying. I want there to be surprised along the way, not everything I see during the film to be obvious that it's going to happen.

Yudh is supposed to be a drama/action film. Yudh means "war" and basically the character of Chinoy, who is played by Danny Denzongpa, is a crooked businessman who wants everything money can buy - so in his own way he declares war on all other businesses to make them his own! He also wants to get all the money he can possibly get by whatever means necessary and if that means killing anyone who gets in his way, of course, he's going to do that.

Tina Munim plays Anita, who is Vikram's love interest. I thought it was extremely cheesy the way their characters meet, he saves her virtue from some thugs and then chats her up and she bats her eyelashes at him and hey presto, they seem to be in love. Wow, how easy is that? If that happened here, the woman would probably do the man for sexual harassment, the lines he uses on her are vomit-inducing! She then turns her affections towards Avinash, even though it seems clear she believes he's a criminal, so what is she up to? It was quite obvious to me and would be to you too. I wasn't particularly enamoured with Munim's acting skills, she was bland to say the least, although she was quite an attractive woman in her day.

Hema Malini appears in the film briefly as the wife of Moinuddin Khan - the man who is sent to prison for a murder that he insists was committed by the Public Prosecutor. Khan is played by Shatrughan Sinha whose appearance is billed as "special appearance" as well as Hema Malini's although she has quite a bit more screen time that he does. These are two fairly famous Bollywood stars and as Shroff and Kapoor were fairly new to the industry when this film came out, having Malini and Sinha in the film would have pulled in the audiences I assume. Malini's character plays a dancer in a brothel so of course there's ample opportunity for song and dance routines focussed on her - she is a trained classical dancer so her dancing never fails to entertain. I can't say the same for the songs of the film as I can't really recall many of the songs from the film.

The film had a host of supporting actors such as Pran, Deven Verma, Iftekar, Madan Puri, Sharat Saxena and Bharat Bhusham who (aside from Pran who was famous in his own right) have been doing bit parts as similar characters for years. Funny how people like Iftekar and Deven Verma often get cast in police roles and Madan Puri and Sharat Saxena are cast as the villains.
Playback singers for the film included Asha Bhosle, Mahendra Kapoor, Lata Magneshkar, Kishore Kumar and Shailendra Singh. Dooston Tum Sabko is the only song that made any impact on me but it's not because the song was especially nice, it's just one of those catchy songs that you can't get out of your head sometimes! The music for the song is just unbelievably cheesy and the dancing is hilarious! Yeh Hai Mujre Ki Raat Aakhiri is pictured on Hema Malini dancing at the brothel and she does a fabulous job of looking alluring and stunning and demure at the same time during the dance.

I cannot avoid mentioning the henchmen of Chinoy; they wore black suits and grey hats throughout the film with white ties, I giggled every time they came on screen - they were just not in the least intimidating and the dwarf henchman in a red waistcoat and black tailcoat was too cute to be taken seriously as a bad guy!

I'm really glad I paid under £2 for this film from erosentertainment.com as I would have felt quite cheated had I paid a penny more. Ebay will be seeing this soon, although I doubt it will sell!


RATING

I can't give this more than 2 out of 5 overall. It's rarely difficult to watch Jackie Shroff on screen and Anil Kapoor was a mere 26 when he made this, even though he looks better in recent times, he wasn't hard to watch in Yudh. The storyline and cheesy bad guys left a lot to be desired though.


TECHNICAL STUFF

Director/screenplay: Rajiv Rai
Producer: Gulshan Rai
Duration: 150 minutes
Certification: 15

Summary: Not really recommended!