Ramji Londonwaley

Ramji (played by Madhavan), an excellent cook from an Indian village, takes a job in London to pay his sister's dowry. When he reaches London, disaster strikes and he finds himself with no identification and no job. He finds help from new friends, and forges an unexpected relationship with a London girl, Samira (Samita Bangargi,) who is his opposite in every way.

This is a cute, feel-good movie somewhat based on Hollywood's 1990 movie Green Card. Madhavan is a good actor and his portrayal of the sweet, naive, and honorable Ramji is well done. Samita Bangargi is not as convincing, and their chemistry was unexceptional. The songs were just average, but incidental music was effective. Overall, while it's not particularly memorable, Ramji Londonwaley is entertaining, and at times moving, mainly due to Madhavan's strong performance.

This was a fun, entertaining, emotional movie and all those aspects work together to make it memorable. This is the type of movie that made me fall in love with Indian cinema and more movies like this, serve as enjoyable reminders! The ending came as a very pleasant surprise that made me laugh!! Perfect!

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.

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.

R Madhavan is a charmer in this movie. Decent songs Feel Good Movie One can enjoy be with family.