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DILLAGI (1999)
Produced and Directed By Sunny Deol
Music: Jatin-Lalit, Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy, Sukhwinder Singh, Anand Milind Starring: Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Urmila Matondkar, Dara Singh, Zohra Segal, Reema Lagoo, Harish Patel, Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Running Time: 191 Minutes
CineRating: 6 out of 10
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For his directorial debut, Sunny Deol -- the star of many a macho action flick -- made the unexpected choice of Dillagi, a modest Sabrina-esque romantic comedy which, for the most part, ends up being a sweet and appealing piece of fluff upon which Deol displays both a light and occasionally ambitious touch. Although the film comes off as an obvious labor of love, audiences were not quite as enamored of the finished product, which bombed at the boxoffice and put a major crimp in Deol's career (since repaired with the smash hit Gadar).
In a bit of typecasting, Deol casts himself and younger brother Bobby as a pair of mismatched siblings named Ranvir (Sunny Deol) and Rajvir (Bobby Deol). During their childhood, as she was dying from cancer, their late mother made Ranvir promise that he would take care of Rajvir (nicknamed "Rocky"). Ranvir kept his word, largely by spoiling Rajvir silly. Now, as adults, Ranvir is a hardworking businessman about to launch the opening of a brand new hotel, while Rajvir is a college student who spends most of his time partying, getting into fights and picking up women. Rajvir's freewheeling approach to life catches the attention of Shalini (Urmila Matondkar), a cute female student who develops a crush on him. After Rajvir bests Shalini's jealous boyfriend in a nightclub brawl, he takes her back to her home, where she has to sneak through her bedroom window in order to avoid her strict parents.
Around the same time, Ranvir joins his grandmother for a Ladies' "Sangeet" (a last party that the bride-to-be gives her friends as a maiden), where he also meets Shalini, who had earlier caught his eye as she walked past his car at a rainy crosswalk. When Ranvir's parents discover that he has fallen head over heels for Shalini, they meet with her parents to arrange a wedding date. However, when Shalini and Ranvir go off by themselves to speak of their engagement, she reveals that she can't marry him because she loves somebody else. Heartbroken, Ranvir nevertheless urges her to marry the man she loves, not realizing that the object of her affections is his own irresponsible brother.
Buoyed by some impressive camerawork and a couple of big-scale song-and-dance numbers, Dillagi hums by in a fairly ingratiating manner, although its plot is full of the typical contrivances needed to keep afloat a love triangle in which the two brothers involved have no idea that they are each other's romantic rival.
The three leads are bit long in the tooth to be involved in this type of youthful romantic hijinx, but they acquit themsleves reasonably well, with Sunny's laid-back manner contrasting nicely against Bobby's loud and abrasive tone. Still, it's Urmila who shines the brightest as the vulnerable young woman who runs the gamut of emotions after she discovers the true nature of Rajvir's character.
Sunny Deol has made the film with an obvious degree of thoughtfulness and feeling, holding the story's focus upon the three main characters and their various emotional crises while keeping the silly comedy to a minimum and limiting the action sequences to a few minor skirmishes. The movie only runs off the rails in its final fifteen minutes, when this paean to brotherly love suddenly turns into an unrelenting sobfest as well as a thinly veiled tribute to Sunny's saintliness.
At his worst, Deol does have a tendency to let scenes run on too long, and those viewers not predisposed to enduring three-hour-long romantic comedies (or those who just feel the Deols are incredibly annoying) may find the predictable and slow-moving plot to be just this side of exasperating. The film is also let down by an uneven soundtrack, which includes remakes of the American songs "Mony Mony" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Strangely enough, the extremely catchy title song is relegated to a few snippets here and there and brief background music for the end scene.
The Eros widescreen DVD release of Dillagi is riddled with speckles and other signs of print wear. The English subtitles frequently disappear for extended periods, but remain constant for the film's last 30 minutes.
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DVD Specs:
Eros DVD
All Regions
Removable English Subs (none for the songs)
Making of Featurette
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