Monsoon

Monsoon review :

Known mostly for his soft porn English films in the '90s, Jag Mundhra's Monsoon (1999) actually got an extensive release in India with its Hindi dubbed version for two reasons :

One was the presence of Gulshan Grover who played the main villain. He also got in to a controversy that time for calling Helen Brodie racist as she refused a sex scene with him while happily agreeing to do a nude foreplay with her American co-actor Richard Tyson.

Secondly, the film was entirely shot in Goa with its exquisite beaches and churches in full glory which made it appeal more to our desi crowd.

While the Indian censors expectedly played spoilsport by snipping off the two lovemaking scenes, the end product turned out to be a criss cross between a routine Bollywood reincarnation drama and an Ashok Amritraj C grade Hollywood stuff. In one word, disappointing.

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

My grandmother saw this film with me and thoroughly enjoyed the trip to India's famous region called Goa. the photography is very beautiful. The plot deals with an American Pentagon official coming to a tropical paradise on the Arabian Coast where he meets a school friend who we learn right up is secretly working undercover for Interpol. There's a fortune teller who hints at things to come, the suspicious fiancé, and even some Hindi dancing and old Portuguese forts from Goa's early history. Gulshan Grover plays a sinister Goan mobster and Matt McCoy is very good doubling as a Jesuit Seminarian and Interpol Agent. Goa, India has lots of Catholic Churches that date to the 16th Century so the sets are often very picturesque. Richard Tyson is very believable as the lead and Helen Bodie is very pretty. Fun movie. I felt like I had a nice trip to Goa, India!

I saw this film and think it shows Goa, India, very nicely. Goa is featured in the Bourne Supremacy opening sequence--but so fast you don't get a feel for it. This film captures Goa beautifully. It also has a story line that appeals to a lot of American men and women. I told my brother in Idaho to check it out and he and his 20 year old sons said it was a great movie. I particularly liked Matt McCoy as the Interpol agent working undercover. Matt was well known in Hand That Rocks The Cradle and LA Confidential. He's really quite good. Gulshan Grover is a bit over the top as the villain, but Richard Tyson is really quite good as the Pentagon official lost in India and hopelessly in love with beautiful Helen Brodie, the Indian model. If you just want an exotic adventure in exotic India this is a great escape. The ending and back story of the past works very well too.

I was against watching this movie from the very begining, but my girlfriend forced me to watch this awful film. It has no romance in it at all, just a vendictive evil wife and drug dealer trying to destroy people. It is more of a tale of cops and robbers, bad guys vs good guys. This movie has NOTHING to do with the ancient art of Kama Sutra. Plus, for a movie that takes place in India, all the main characters were American! What a Joke! I was very disappointed and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I would give it a 1/2 star out of 10. However crappy this movie was, the acting of Gulshan Grover who played the bad guy Morinda, was done very well. If only it was a gangster film, the role would have been more adequate. If you want to get in a romantic mood, this isn't the movie to help you.

I typically do not go this route when first introducing this film from a critiquing standpoint, but Monsoon was painful. This movie was not just painful to the eyes (as most film tend to be), but also painful to the ears, head, shoulders, knees, and especially the toes. This film was on par with a night of heavy drinking. I remember awakening from the slumber that this film induced and wondering if my body had decided to leave and head to the local watering hole for excitement. I apologize to the word painful for associating such a film with such a word, but Monsoon was excruciating. Beginning with the sleazy, nearly home-movie-ish opening to the cliché moments that plagued the entire plot and story of this film to the pathetic excuse for an ending, Monsoon did nothing but bring a black cloud upon the excitement that surrounds "Kama Sutra". I am surprised that those behind the business of "Kama Sutra" haven't brought lawsuits against this slanderous film. I suppose that one could say that I am being harsh, but I have trouble understanding how films, without any artistic moments, any detailed development, or any feasible acting can be a clean mark on the Hollywood community. This was one of those films that demonstrated to the world that if you have a camera and women are willing to expose themselves, than you … yes you … could have a potential film on your hands. Pathetic isn't it?

Again, I must apologize, but I do not remember much of how this film ended. I think that will stop me from needing to warn you about "spoilers", but that also tells me about the poor quality of everything leading up to this anti-climactic ending. I would like to begin my ranting with the opening of this film. Flashbacks are a huge element to defining the moment and sub-plots of a film, but when it decides to take history into its own hands and slap a simple mustache on our supposed heroine to show ethnicity, you immediately feel your stomach begin to curdle and all hope for decency soar out the window. That is how I felt at the beginning of Monsoon. From the third-grade CGI to the daytime television acting, I could only hope that this film would grow better over time. Yet another shining example of how time ruined my hopes and dreams.

As Monsoon developed (if that is what you would like to call it), the characters fell deeper within their cliché sinkholes and random intangible events seemed to take the place of a structured story. I do not believe that anyone that focused an evening on this film could accurately tell me the story surrounding this film. That is not a good sign. I honestly believe that it is due in great part to the acting that this film could never quite catch its moment of glory. Take for example the illustrious villain of this film, a man simply named Brian (doesn't that send shivers up your spine?) who seemed to sound more congested than sinister. I couldn't tell if someone else was doing his voice from behind the screen to give a stronger demeanor about the character, but whatever was happening was wrong. This man wasn't evil on a stick, but instead a sweet little lollypop with hair all over it. Yuck! Then we have our heroine. Kenneth. Could anyone have a decent name in this film? His entire story is so diluted that I was surprised not to see water trickling from his pockets. No emotion surrounds this character, no reasoning behind his actions, and foremost, any reality behind his words. I never once believed that Kenneth was nothing more than Richard Tyson playing a character whom could not act. Actually, as you look amongst all of our players in this film, there was not one that decently gave us an attempt to act. It felt as if they all were possibly using this film to pay their credit cards and to gain notoriety in an apparent "D" film market. It was as if I was watching an Acting 101 video on "How not to act in Cinema". It was that horrid.

I have nearly destroyed this film, but that does not make me happy. I have every intention of falling in love with every film that enters into my player, but when it doesn't even bother picking itself out of the muck like Monsoon, why should I bother enjoying. It is when I watch films like this that I miss Mystery Science Theater 3000 the most. Their ability to find the most wretched of films and point out its flaws to the world was priceless. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was created for films of this nature. If I was handed Monsoon as a film project and was asked to grade the power in front of the camera for director Jag Mundhra, here is how it would look:

Acting: F

Plot: F

Creativity: F

Interesting Use of Lighthouse: C

Reason for being in Hollywood: E (oh, it was that bad)

As I deeply cleaned the burning sensation from my eyes, I dreamed of a life without Monsoon, and my face broke into a very enthusiastic smile!

Grade: * out of *****