Jaal (1986)

Umesh Mehra's Jaal is quite an entertaining film despite its usual and expected problems which can be associated with many films of its era. There are many themes and genres within this one: a social drama, a romantic love triangle, a thriller, an action film. This multi-starred picture is mainly about Mithun's character Shankar and Rekha's Ameeta. She just set the brothel she's worked in for years on fire and hires him to visit the village in which he was born and she lived to spy on the man who ruined her life (and interestingly, his family's life as well). Again, Rekha plays a forty plus woman and Mithun plays a 20 plus guy while in real life he is several years older than she is. The story is narrated interestingly, involving many flashbacks, beautiful songs composed by Anu Malik, and unsurprisingly typical action and successfully tear-jerking drama scenes. Mithun is great in roles such as this when he plays the action-romantic hero, and this one is no exception. Rekha is as always astonishing and very convincing. Mandakini and Moon Moon Sen, two extremely beautiful girls, are well-cast. Sharat Saxena and Ila Arun are very good. Tanuja plays the typical suffering mother well, and Jeetendra and Vinod Mehra appear in smaller parts. Among the songs, my favourite is "Oye Kya Cheez Hai Tu" (which is preceded by Ila Arun's song "Raina Bawari Bhayee Re"), which is wonderful, while Rekha rocks in her numbers "Main Hoon Dulhan" and "Break Dance", sung by Asha Bhosle. To sum it up, Jaal is nowhere a particularly good film, but I quite enjoyed watching it nonetheless and I've liked it since childhood. A Hindi masala which is worth watching.