Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

blushingpeony I watched this because of its status as a Bollywood nostalgia film. However, there really is much more bad than good in this movie. I'll start with the pros. The last hour or so the plot gets more interesting as the family manipulation really kicks in and the climax and resolution arrive, the rest of the movie just kind of feels like slap-stick time-wasting nonsense. There are a few good songs thrown in, the classic being "Pardesi Pardesi." Thats where the good ends. Some spoilers may be ahead. Yikes! Where do I begin? The first thing is Karisma Kapoor's acting in the whole first half of the movie- its painful. She often does this laugh that sounds so fake and simply weird... the same laugh is usually reserved for villains in cheesy American movies. The laugh is also really out of place as she laughs at things Raja does that aren't even remotely funny. Most of the characters are painfully stupid and are really just there for slap-stick, like the servants and Raja's best friend. Some scenes with them are just bizarre. However, the part of this movie that leaves me the most baffled is Raja and why everyone treats his behavior as not that far out of the ordinary... if a little shameful in some circumstances. Besides being not that smart to begin with, he is a very violent person with an extremely short temper and very inflexible notions of pride that are really just founded in insecurity. He almost beats like 6 guys to death and has to be pulled off of a guy he's about to stab with a broken bottle...just because they catcalled the Karisma Kapoor's character (Aarti). Any normal woman would have ran for the hills if some guy did that, especially since they weren't even in a relationship. When they get married he freaks out at any notion of compromise and refuses to accept any gift from his wife's father. He doesn't even want to go to Mumbai to see her family until she convinces him to go for her birthday. This is the point that the movie starts to get interesting, but Raja's behavior is still grotesquely out of line. He creates a giant,drunken, violent scene at the birthday party because he believes his wife asked him to wear a suit because she's "ashamed of him" even though shes demonstrated a thousand times before throughout the rest of the movie that she doesn't see him being a "lowly cab driver" shameful at all and has defended him before at fairly high personal stakes. Yet, his own insecurity gets in the way and he ruins everyones night and becomes a publicly embarrassing spectacle over a trivial matter that could have been easily resolved if the situation involved a man with a temper thats not like a pile of dynamite about to explode. After that, most of their miscommunication and misfortune comes from Raja's pride and unfortunate circumstances on Aarti's end, as well as familial manipulation. Raja's baffling behavior progresses to kidnapping as he steps over the unconscious body of his wife, whom he is supposedly heart broken over, to steal his baby and run all the way back to his village, which is 3 hours away by car, with no clothes, blankets, or food for the baby. At this point, he really acts like a crazed animal more than a person, with wide crazy eyes, no speech, and roughly clutching the baby when his well-meaning family try to reason with him. After other events happen and the "miscommunications" are sorted out, everybody is happy like nothing happened. I was stunned... like... hey Aarti! You're still married to a crazy, ultra-violent, super-insecure guy who kidnapped and endangered your baby and you're just cool with that? Cause the rest of it was a misunderstanding? Very bizarre. Aarti often blames herself as well for her husband's over-reactions... like I said- bizarre. I have to say I feel very confused as to why this is a "classic." I would say if you're still dying to watch it, read a summary and then skip to an hour and ten minutes or so before the end. It will be more worth it that way.

CriticGirl91 I can't believe the stupidity of this film. So, the extremely rich heroine falls in love with and actually marries a taxi driver!!! a.k.a. tourist guide. I seriously have nothing against the poor, I'm poor myself but how realistic is this plot. Not only that, she settles with him in a village!! Karishma Kapoor hams through the film. I wanted to shut my ears every time she laughed. I couldn't believe that the ever lovable and chirpy girl had such an arrogant expression on her face throughout the film. Archana Puran Singh was no less annoying.The plot is too dumb to even speak of. And the cheesy dialogs like "haye main mar gayi" made me want to run away. It was pathetic even for the nineties. The jokes are lame and mostly in bad taste. I wonder what audience this film wished to cater to.Yet, I am giving this painful three hour film two stars. One for the excellent acting by Aamir Khan and Suresh Oberoi. Aamir deserved the filmfare for his earnestness, no matter what people say. After all, it takes courage to work in a chaos of a story such as this. Suresh Oberoi is a lovable father, despite his 'eccentricities' (who would want their heiress daughter to marry a taxi driver?) as always.The other star is for the exceptional music that has stayed with me till date. Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan really made the music come alive despite the bad presentation on screen. A memorable score by Nadeem Shravan, and the film's only saving grace.Give it a skip, hear the audio though.

Ibuk I saw Raja Hindustani way way back in 96 when it first came out. It was a huge blockbuster and made Karisma Kapoor a major star. The songs became imensely popular, especially Pardesi Pardesi. In my opinion the songs are the only reason the movie became such a huge blockbuster because the story is pretty appalling and clichéd. The story as it is involves Aamir Khan, a cab driver who falls in love with a rich girl who comes to stay with him. They get married but then the rich girl's parents try to cause problems in their relationship and the couple eventually split. The movie's main problem is that it can't decide whether it wants to be a remake of Jab Jab phool kile or Akele hum akele tum and it ends up as an uneasy mix of both. The movie can't even be saved by the wonderful songs. An awful awful movie and the fact that the movie did so well simply astounds me.

Peter Young This must be a joke... Just to make it clear, this is definitely a nice film, and has some very nice songs. But it is just one of those ordinary B-grade films with good-looking actors and great costumes, which lack real story lines. So how exactly did this film win the Best Film Award? Shocking, and simultaneously laughable!Aamir and Karisma did pretty well and Karisma's flashy outfits added some value, but these two did not deserve the Best Actor/Actress awards for this film by any means whatsoever, especially considering the brilliant Nana Patekar and Manisha Koirala, who gave sterling performances in that same year's gem Khamoshi: The Musical, which was the most deserving film to win the Best Film award. This was possibly the most pathetic year in the history of Filmfare and any Bollywood award. It's so sad.The film disappoints big time. It's boring at times, too melodramatic at others. And it's not that I expected to see a masterpiece from Dharmesh Darshan, but you would expect to see a representative of Bollywood's best commercial flicks. It's not even close, and the biggest proof to that is that today nobody really remembers Raja Hindustani as such. We remember Dilwale, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, but this film sucks in comparison.Watch it if you want to have some nice time, but don't expect to see an unforgettable, amazingly special film, or even a particularly good film, because your expectations will be disproved.