Esmayeel Shroff's Majhdaar is a very controversial film and part of the reason is because the film heavily borrows the tragic element from Hollywood Films. In fact, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was one of the first to introduce tragedy and indirectly, this film borrows that element from Romeo and Juliet. The film is a typical love story gone wrong because of parental and pressure from the society. The film works mainly because of some light hearted scenes from Salman Khan's character. The film moves well till the part where Salman gets married to the heroine. It's just very unnatural and hard to digest. Yes the tragic element is well used but it was much better used in the original Romeo and Juliet film.
The sole reason the movie is watchable is because Salman Khan does some unintentionally funny comedy, dances in a hilarious way, and some other really stupid but funny scenes. The original love story is tad boring and only makes the film bland. The reason why the film is controversial is because the tragedy element is not something Bollywood film have. The film was ahead of it's time and the film was rejected for some scenes that are very hard to digest.
Direction by Esmayeel Shroff is average, he handles the light hearted Salman scenes well and some scenes showing the tragic parts of the film. However, the main story is boring and poorly edited. The scenes showing parental pressure and pressure from the society is typical yet well handled. However, the sudden marriage of Salman and the heroine, the heroine dumping and leaving Salman and going to the hero is all poorly shown and horribly edited. To make matters worse, the film was actually one of Salman's first films as an actor. The film started in between Maine Pyar Kiya(1989) and Baghi(1990) both super hit films. The film was supposed to release as late as 1994 but the dispute between the producers and the director continued and the film was in cans until 1996. The ending was also garbage and extremely hard to digest.
Salman Khan does a sincere job and he is one of the only plus points of the film. His comedy is fairly good, he entertains, he is the life of the film. Rahul Roy is bland once again proving why he could never become a good actor. If Salman was the lead actor, then the film would've been much better. Manish Koirala is the typical heroine who weeps when she cannot marry and reunite with her first love. Her acting is nothing great. Veteran actor Raj Babbar is wasted in a role that only requires him the ham and speak boring dialogs. The rest provide functional support.
On the whole, Majhdhaar is a tragic movie and the tragedy is well shown in parts. But, the actual love story is poorly started and poorly executed. I would only recommend this movie for Salman fans to watch his acting in the earlier days and his charismatic performance. Otherwise, the film is filled with many plot holes and veteran director Esmayeel Shroff fails to make a good film here. On the whole, Majhdhaar is neither a classy nor a well made tragic film. No wonder the lifetime box office collections of the film was a tragedy, such films portraying tragic love story's have nothing but a tragic box office collection outlaying the film as a box office flop.
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