Kaalia

Review By Kamal K

Superb movie. One of the most stylish and iconic blockbuster of Amitabh. Plot is not new but still movie is entertaining.

Too much frames of this movie cannot forger so easily just because of the making,i have seen this movie more than three times with my family. amitab bachans performance is very outstanding.

Amitabh Bachchan at his best again. Pran ever present, and Amjad khan with a great performance,

Kaalia is an gripping film, with a great plot, and has great songs to, that fit in with the story line. With what i've been told one Rafi's last songs for a film. Kader khan has a brief but a solid performance and Parveen Babi ever present in a good performance.

The films is quick and flowing but has a hint of great comedy by cast. The scene with Parveen Babi making the Egg is a real laugh.

It isn't big b's best film but a film worth watching. It cant be classed with Deewar, Sholay or Agneepath, but it's still a great watch.

"Kalia" was disappointing--overlong, illogical and generally ham-handed. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that a movie is bad--after all most Indian films suffer from these problems. The star of this film, Amitabh Bachchan appeared in "Amar, Akbar, Anthony" (1977) which had similar problems but was still a wonderful film.

Bachchan is a charismatic actor but even he cannot save this film from its repetitious plot twists, insipid songs, laborious dialogue and bad acting.

Bachchan plays a good-natured fellow, who is forced to turn to a life of crime to support his family when his brother is injured at the unsafe mill where he works. The mill owner/criminal mastermind callously refuses to help with money for an operation, even though the injury is his fault. Kaalia seeks revenge for his brother and ends up in jail where he becomes a hardened criminal. Heists, fistfights, interminable chases flesh out this 3 hour film. None are particularly interesting. See "Amar, Akbar, Anthony" instead.

Well, another of those crude and pathetic movies of the 1980s which today are sadly often cited as the worst examples for films which stamped this decade as the most terrible period in the history of mainstream Hindi cinema. From Kalu to Kaalia, from an innocent guy to a sophisticated gangster, and there you get another Bachchan hit. A clichéd and done-to-death story, a poor script filled with mindless action scenes and many melodramatic proceedings. It's a pity, considering Bachchan's achievements in the 1970s, when he proved his merit as an excellent actor and a star deserving of the resounding success he attained. Actually, here too Bachchan is not that bad; he is of course let down by the script but he also rises above its weakness in several sequences. It's just the choice of this film itself which disappoints (and he would appear in many movies unworthy of his abilities later in the decade). Where the film manages to provide some fun is, first, in the music. Well, that's to be expected when the one responsible for the soundtrack is R.D Burman. Secondly, the sequences portraying the romantic relationship between Bachchan and the exotic beauty Parveen Babi. These are the only worthy moments in the film, which also include the hilarious (not unintentionally, for a change) scene in which Babi breaks an egg on her own head, thinking this would help her to make an omelet. Babi's presence is one of the few positive aspects in this film. The film also has Asha Parekh, who is quite okay, but at times gets also a bit melodramatic, which is of course not her fault. To sum it up, Kaalia is just another wannabe gangster movie with the most predictable twists and neither Bachchan nor any of its other good points save it from being a cheapo.