Ramji Londonwaley

I went to this movie with great reluctance. I was told by a good friend that it is the remake of a Tamil Film Nala Damayanthi, which was very good. I found it to be a decent masala film. The story is about a cook Ramji(Madhavan), who gets his sister married but cannot find the cash to pay for her dowry. His sister's father-in-law threatens him that if he doesn't pay the dowry quickly he will have no option, but to throw his sister out. He is given an offer to go to London to cook for a wealthy Indian Family, and he takes it in the hope of making some money for his sister's dowry. This story basically deals with he culture shock faced by poor Ramji in the alien land of England and the funny situations he gets himself into. He finds his Indian roots to be of great help in London and becomes a much loved character there. He also manages to find himself a love interest played by Samita Bangargi. She is the modern Gori Mem and she moves from hating Ramji to loving him deeply(Very Original!!!!). The comedy in the movie is good but it loses way in the middle. The movie tries to do too much and falls flat on its face. The scenes with the Immigration officials are a little silly. Overall a decent movie. A family entertainer. If you have 3 hours to kill, you can go for it.

Good movie, nice storyline, great cast and decent acting .. but production is the one that is probably pulling the movie rating down. Scenes seems to be patched together and does not look organic.

Umm, a good laugh with few dialogues and scenes. The introduction is really funny and creates a connection between you and the protagonist. I am not from Bihar and have only heard bihari accent from the movies but I felt Madhavan's take on Bihari accent was funny.

On the story side, just a typical timepass storyline, nothing too much happening. There wasn't anything extraordinary that you wouldn't have seen before, but it also isn't boring in a sense that you wouldn't have the urge to turn it off halfway.

Climax was so so, but this movie would have been way funnier if the exact storyline was in Punjabi.

I really, really loved this movie. It was a simple and heartfelt story about a good, caring and simple man who tries to take care of his sister and gets into a load of trouble along the way.

I found the story very moving, and the performances, in my opinion, were all very good. Madhavan shines in the lead role (he plays strong, sensitive, and simple very well...and looks good too, I might add - sorry just had to put that in there!), and the lead female actress is great too. The other actors all do a decent job. The guy who played 'Jai' was generally very good, but his scenes with the 'Samira' character were stilted. I cringed every time he called her 'baby'.

The film has a strong message, about being true to yourself, and finding good in others. There's also a message about using your talents and appreciating the gifts we each have. For me, the love that grew between the lead characters was very believable, and was the anchor for the story. We saw it develop over time - it wasn't over-sexualised or ridiculously sudden like in a lot of movies. And a lot of topical issues were dealt with in the movie, but not in a preachy way (see Shah Rukh Khan's 'Pardes' for an example of a Hindi movie that preached at the audience - I felt I was being hit over the head with a mallet). In 'Ramji Londonwaley', the messages are more subtle and therefore seem more sincere.

I wasn't expecting too much from this movie (and it does start out a bit slow), but I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I loved and enjoyed it. A good job by all.

I was surprised to find that the movie, with a pacey and slick script, is actually good! This is hollywoodisation of bollywood...more precisely, this is Mckeeisation of bollywood. Inspired (no pun intended) by their Hollywood counterparts, the Indian scriptwriters have also started taking cues from Robert Mckee - the screen writing guru. This story has a deep imprint of Mckee in a clear and structured manner- inciting incident, negation of negation, plot points, resolution etc etc.

On the face of it, this development would appear as a progressive step which indeed it is for a while BUT it also contains seeds of quick stagnation . The Hollywood movies have long lost their souls and now appear very predictable and plastic- thanks to an overdose of Mckee. The same may happen to the new wave Indian movies if they keep religiously following American structuralism without realising the flip side of it. Indian writers should see to it that in an attempt to break free from bollywood formula, they do not get trapped in the Hollywood (mckee) formula. Individual creativity and instincts is all one should follow while making a movie.

Did I mention, this movie is worth your multiplex expenses and three hours? Go watch it.