| Disco
Dancer
(1987)
Starring: Anjuman, Sangeeta, Yusuf Khan, Shiva, Tariq Shah, Rangeela, Khanum Director: Zahoor Hussain Synopsis: Bombastic Lollywood potboiler with all the right ingredients! Reviewed by: Omar Khan |
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The film begins with a wealthy young couple leaving for a weekend in their personally owned forest along with their two infant daughters. The couple is off to visit their friend Shera who lives deep in the forest and who looks after the vast estates and forests owned by his city master. The couple seems to have everything in life that anyone could wish for; a fabulous multicoloured house, numerous servants and sari clad aaya's and a swank Toyota Corolla in which to nip around their estates and forests. The only thing they desperately need in order to achieve nirvana is a proper heir to their millions as the two kids they have are both burdensome girls.
On the way to the forest they have an unfortunate collision which has a bizarre effect on the man of the house. He leaps out of the car and proceeds to do about 35 summersaults which are more likely to be the cause of his death rather than the slight collision against a tree. The unfortunate mother appears mysteriously in a nearby stream as a result of the terrible accident. Shera happened to be grazing nearby and comes racing to the rescue only to find the mother gasping her last breaths. She gives Shera one of her daughters to look after and also hands him a one of a pair of lockets. The other pair is with the other daughter who also miraculously survived the crash and who is found by some hoodlums who decide to raise her as one of their own in the crime filled city. Shera, who is a rather portly and paunchy version of Tarzan teaches his adopted daughter the ways of the jungle and also how to fight, hunt and protect herself from the dangers that the jungle holds. The two often have fierce battles as practice at home, just to maintain their edge in the jungle. Shera's daughter grows from ugly duckling to gorgeous Anjuman and the two of them live contented, oblivious lives out there in the forest with all those fearsome wild beasts around them. We learn that the other twin sister has grown up to be Disco who entrances the law enforcing authorities with her dances while her cohorts go about robbing the banks of the city and car lifting. One day a wrinkled Asif Khan is about to be eaten by a lion in the forest when foliage clad beauty Anjuman arrives in the nick of time. She nurses him back to health and also falls in love with him and straight into his terrible trap. Asif Khan runs a prostitution ring with his sister and poor jungle Belle Anjuman is about to become one of his many acquisitions. He is a most callous fraud and the nastiest of pimps and poor Anjuman is about to be duped like so many other hapless girls before her including Sangeeta. The sister is a fire breathing monster, quite brilliantly acted by a lady whose name we still don't know. She towers over proceedings from the moment she enters and is a sight to behold. Madame, as she is known, has a legion of her daughters-in-law lined up to be thrashed and whipped into compliance and used to bring in a handsome income. They are administered deadly and addictive drugs to break their them and force them to submit to her debauched will. Madame rules the house with an iron fist and a leather whip and several goons who tremble in fear of crossing her. Once in a while Madame takes to crucifying her girls while thrashing them black and blue with her iron tipped hunter!
Yousuf Khan, looking the wrong side of 60 plays the earnest police inspector who also happens somehow or the other to be the son of a deluded underworld boss Jimmy, superbly acted by Tariq Shah. Sangeeta makes a brief but telling guest appearance as one of the miserable wives who shows a little spirit along the way and ultimately sparks a most horrifying revolution. Alas Anjuman, after the initial flurry in the jungle doesn't have too much to do despite the double role. She does however perform delightfully to the title song but the other songs are below the mark. Shiva also has a small part as a retard which he plays with natural flair. The film is dominated by the performances of Madame and also to some extent Shera who is simply brilliant as the graying Tarzan clone. His exchanges and dialogue delivery are simply electric and worth watching the movie for on their own….yet there is so much more. The villain (Tariq Shah) is a bumptious loud mouth with a spillover paunch and the typical resounding laughter that his breed must possess. It's a caricature of the typical Lollywood villain and a most enjoyable one at that.
The plot is as deranged as one would hope for and perhaps even beyond expectations. The selection of wigs while not quite upto Hitlar's mindboggling standards, does maintain Lollywood's overall superiority in that particular field. Disco Dancer is wonderfully fast paced high voltage stuff for the first half - occasionally almost breathtaking, but things begin to falter just a bit with the extended fight scene and a couple of songs that could certainly have been left out. Yet, there is a literally rip roaring climax scene when all the scorned wives exact a most horrendous revenge on their heinous husband-cum-pimp as well as the scene's where Madame and Shera come face to face. One of the movie's strongest aspects is the superlative background score which almost challenges one to describe it. It's a quite brilliantly arranged symphony of tacky synth crescendo's - simply stunning. This film is classic Lollywood formula of lost twins, family lockets, supreme sacrifices and so on but done with such magnificent style that it manages to enthrall for the most part. Epic, soul stirring stuff, and what a find that Madame is who believe is Khanum. Also Shera whose identity remains a mystery to us.
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