Around the World

Watched it for Raj Kapoor, the name in itself. But this movie is nothing but a joke, what they wanted to present. No character information, just bring some random guy anf put it into. Worst editing, no continuity, nonsense. Enforced songs, without need. Foreign characters seem dont engaged in the process. Story is in itself doesnt know what it want to present, just to make an stupid imitation for original "Around the world in 80 days". Cant understand why that period is praised, when these kind of stupidity was served to the audiences. If you wanted to show foreign locations, better to had made a documentary explaining the locations.

This film, touted as India's first 70 mm film might have been well done technically(at least by the standards of those days) but fails as a cohesive unit. Raj Kapoor, the showman was growing old and his pairing with Rajshree does not seem convincing. The villain(played by Pran) was a one dimensional character with little character development. Sure, there were some great shots of exotic locations around the world but the lack of storytelling destroys everything. The film fails to grasp the viewers interests and even the comical situations are terribly unfunny. It is only the surprisingly good music score which renders it watchable. All in all, a weak film that merits little reason to be seen.

Raj Kapoor's career as an actor peaked in the fifties and early sixties. He was becoming slightly rotund and fat and it shows in this film. It wasn't much commercially successful either.

The film has a decent mixture of comedy infused in it, though much of it is low brow and the plot especially gets sidetracked in the middle of the film. Raj Kapoor presents a Chaplin-esque inspired character yet again and does it good. He is joined in by Pran, who yet again plays a villainous character.

The highlight of the film has to be it's music. While not at par with the best of Raj Kapoor's films (read: those directed by him), they are eminently listenable even after all these years.

"Around the World" starts with a youth set to go around the world with a mere 8 dollars in his pocket and is left stranded in Tokyo. The beginning seems like a start of a very different genre for a 60s classic. But soon the film comes into a familiar league of a general 60s movie with the chit-chats of the hero and heroine and a regular bad guy played by Pran. The weakness of the story is further aggravated by the lack of an interesting plot, incoherence in storytelling and repetition of boring situations. In contrary to the title of the movie, very few countries have been shown in the movie. But owing to the time and period of the film, the film deserves an attention for the endeavor made in the techniques of the film (the film was the first 70mm technicolor movie of India) like the foreign locations shot and few nice songs among few forgettable tunes. Anyway, if you're a fan of Raj Kapoor, you won't regret watching it.

Rating: 1 star out of 4