I: Proud to Be an Indian

Good Screenplay.

Good Direction.

Indians are Most Relative people.

They are still very relative to U.K.

America is escape..

Iceland is eternity for every one.

They should look 50% of time towards America and 50% of to Iceland.

Skin Head are only meat.. no emotions..

Donkeys are better than them... at least they carry load and work over

here...

Thanks and Regards.

Sam Rupani

Houston, Texas, United States of America.

This movie has some very interesting aspects concerning Indian mentality towards racism or humiliation, which is (or was?) a basic problem. The movie had a very well done plot and good ideas. This film is something completely new. Now the movie was not about the fights, it had a very interesting message, which is something like: if you really want something to happen, and you have a strong will, it will happen. This film is perhaps also to provoke some kind of basic change of attitude towards humiliation and racism. (Which, by the way, does not goes towards violence, but a better awareness of the own dignity, self-respect and a stronger will, maybe.) It luminates also other basic problems, for example how easily racists can get the upper hand: "divide and rule". All in all the movie tries to bring a more clear idea of the whole theme of racism against Indians and to provoke a better awareness of everyone (for Indian AND British or generely whites).

NOW, everyone who voted for under 8, is, in my opinion, either a skinhead himself or just does not care about the theme of racism or does not understand the seriousness of it or is a piece of meat.

I never before have heard of the skinheads neo-Nazi group before, probably because I don't live in England. I guess I could compare it to the KKK here in the US. I live just a couple hours north of their headquarters! I never really remember encountering one, though. My parents said we ran into some in Martinsville, IN, but I was too young to remember it. They also tell me about this group called "Dot Busters" where they used to shoot women with the dots on their forehead (Indians wearing bindis), but I don't think they exist anymore. Anyways, I think one can only enjoy this movie if he/she can relate to it. How much you like it depends on how much racism you've experienced or knowledge you have of such groups. My geographic location let me enjoy the movie and the fact that I slightly remember how racist my society used to be in the late 80s-early 90s. However, I am fortunate to say that society seems to be heading in the right direction in respect to racism, so I didn't have enough experience to like love this movie.

Sohail Khan did a good job acting. Since it was his production, I'm sure he had a passion for the story and could fully embody the character. He has matured as an actor from his awful debut (don't even remember the name of it) to Darna Mana Hai and now I. His bhabhi did a great job acting, and so did the little kid. Aslam also was good. After a long time, I saw a not-small budget film, and it was sure a nice experience after all the trashy movies that have come out this year. Songs were not bad. One thing I didn't like that much is that racism was responded to with violence. In reality, I don't believe violence can solve ANYTHING.

I would preface my review by saying that out of the 3 stars that I rated this movie, 2 would be solely for being somewhat original. The unfortunate circumstance that plagues the Indian movie industry is that most movies thrown at the mainstream are, more often than not, copies (to varying degrees) of foreign (mostly Hollywood) movies. Having finished anything good that I had to say about this movie, let's continue with why this movie is bad.

Firstly, the worst part of the movie was the end. It was terribly cheesy and melodramatic and extremely disappointing. It was especially disheartening that after 9/10ths of the movie tried to portray the contemporary problem of racism (though the authenticity of the manner in which they have portrayed it is questionable), the end is probably the furthest they could have taken you from providing a practical solution. This is unfortunately very typical of Bollywood, where melodramatic, half-baked stories are thrown to the masses with a veil of some sort of social activism / awakening, but very predictably ending in an anti-climax.

Secondly, it provides a very uni-dimensional view of racism. It reminded me, amusingly, of old westerns where the good cowboys wore white hats and the bad ones wore black. This film suffers from a terribly oversimplified notion of racism. It's a little too black-and-white. (If you want to see a better movie about skinheads watch 'This is England' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480025/).

Thirdly, though the acting is not as atrocious as it could be, given the cast, it is definitely not anything notable. The lead actor as others have observed can be said to have improved from his earlier work, but has still a looooong way to go before he can be said to be a good actor.

Fourthly, the camera work was also nothing great. One reviewer remarked that this movie was good because it had "No awkward pauses or abrupt scenes" - true, but is that really an achievement that one should credit a professional with?! Isn't that the basic minimum one should expect from a film-maker?! On the other hand, I wished that there was better camera work when they covered parts such as the graffiti on the walls, which proved to be quite unreadable.

All in all, this film is quite shoddy, and makes a mess of an otherwise pertinent issue. I would say don't waste your time watching it.

It was the year 2005, and my friend father got killed in a heated humiliated ethnic brawl in America plus he was looted of all the hard-earned money, and when his dead body deported to Pakistan, I can't get over the miserable look of his mother, wife, and father. It's been 15 long years and with life, I forgot about the whole incident but the opening dialogues of this film bring back all the flashbacks.

Released in 2004, "I - Proud to be An Indian" is a story of "I" who is an Indian. He travels to London for a family wedding and finds his family live in fear of the terrorism by National Front Skinheads and finds he has to become involved which escalates the situation.

Written by Sohail Khan, this film is about racism against Asians in London, a sensitive issue that was neglected by the mass media in the previous decades. Khan covered every aspect of the heinous brawls which normally an Asian has to face towards its ethnic roots.

Direction from Puneet Sira was Okayish, and unlike other Indian directors who love to explore London, he sticks to his story which was a good sign plus the songs were played in narrative style and mostly suited up the story with some great bhangra numbers.

Sohail Khan was the main man, he lived up to it. He got the right attitude from frame A to Z. He was masculine, expressive, and badass with equally good action choreography. It was looking like a tale from the 1980s Hollywood cinema. Sohail was paralleled by his supporting cast especially Kulbushan Kharbanda & Asif Sheikh.

Last Word: "I - Proud to be an Indian" is a film with great potential, a good entertainer, with a minimal budget. It was an experiment to deviate from usual Hindi films which never paid off, but I loved its theme and message. I learned a lot of things, and one of them is your "dignity" and the other is "self-respect" and in real life, we easily compromise on these things and let the evil sail through victory.

Recommended to Actioners, who want to have some different flare.