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DVD Review |
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By Joginder Tuteja, July 14, 2008 - 18:32 IST
MOVIE DETAILS
Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Juhi Chawla, Maninder, Nehha Pendse
Director: Ganesh Acharya
Producer: Ganesh Acharya
Music: Nitin-Sony
Lyrics: Sameer
THE FILM
A lower middle class couple (Manoj Bajpai, Juhi Chawla) are happy with their humble lifestyle. However, the man of the house has a life long fantasy of owning a rocking chair, which by the way he cannot afford due to his meager income. Meanwhile, the lady of the house falls seriously ill and there are a few thousand rupees required for her operation. The man starts working 20 hours a day and saves money for the operation, only to find the lady saying - 'Surprise surprise - Here is this chair for you that you always wanted!'
With all savings goings kaput, the only line that the man goes on to say - 'Oops, I will have to do even more overtime now'!
Excuse me, but isn't there something called 'being practical' here! Ok, so there is one thing being sensitive to the feelings of your spouse and another being practical enough to realize the right expenditure for the right situation. Is the chair important or the operation? Especially when the doc has clearly called out how 'time is critical' in this case. Come on, catch the first bus next morning, sell off that chair back to the showroom, return with whatever money you get in hand, earn a little more and get that operation done which would keep your wife alive!
But no, love wins here but not life. No wonder, the wife dies and the man is left heartbroken. Now if only he would have prioritized his wife over that rocking chair!
Now this is the basic pretext of Ganesh Acharya directed Swami which released exactly a year back but sees it's DVD release only now. A big failure at the box office, it had its first half dedicated on the 'rocking chair' saga that moved at such a painful pace that one almost decided to give up the film's viewing at least thrice in the course of 1 hour. Thankfully, second half of the film is reasonably tolerable with the man's only son (Maninder) growing up to be a bank executive. Both father and son wish to fulfill mother's dream of seeing the entire family settle down in 'Amrika'.
Son gets married, a little bit of drama follows (thankfully it isn't 10% as ugly as the Raj Kiran-Shoma Anand kind of social dramas that we saw in the early 80s) and everything is just fine in the end. Well, almost. A reverse of Baghban happens and the man chooses to spend the rest of his life with his rocking chair and remembrance of his wife as the 'beta-bahu' settle down abroad!
Frankly, Manoj Bajpai is the soul of the film and is present from frame #1-100. His middle aged to old man transition is exemplary and he gets the 'sur' just perfect. Juhi Chawla is decent though she is unsuccessful in aping the South Indian accent of Hema Malini and Sridevi. Even newcomers Maninder and Nehha are good here with Maninder showing glimpses of a good talent in the offering, especially in his scenes with Bajpai.
PACKAGING
The film comes in a standard local plastic case. Since the DVD comes on Moser Baer, don't expect any fancy packaging.
DURATION
The film comes in a single DVD pack with the film's duration being 120 minutes.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The DVD doesn't come with any special features.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
- The DVD does not come with 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation. In layman terms, it's in a regular format (with thick top and bottom stripes) which is associated with VCD format.
- Subtitles in English
- Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo
PRICE
Rs. 50/=
CONCLUSION
At maximum, Swami works for those who love spending their evenings with the characters created by Ekta Kapoor. This is a slow moving story which holds forts mainly due to Manoj Bajpai's bravura act.
 
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