Dizzy and Delirious but Dancing

Dizzy and delirious but dancing

I am going to be very candid and critical in my opinion of this overwrought, glitzy melodrama which was made in 1983 as a disco epic in ludicrously bad taste by the director from hell who employed the worst extras and the most nauseatingly disgusting sets to launch Mithun as India’s Disco Dancer champion while the rest of the world had forgotten about Donna summer and Boney m, notwithstanding the fact that Hollywood disco movies are any way superior to this rags to riches story which is filled with outrageously bad costumes, the most absurd villains and very poor technical support if any at all, since the music by Bappi Lahiri is inspired from multiple sources and the cameraman has no clue as to where to place his equipment, the result is a rip-off which is so earnest and sincere in disco worship that you almost want to like it, but alas the whole thing is only held afloat barely due to Mithun’s talent as an actor and a dancer, though earnestly he is not even near his normal self in either department, yet how do you explain its immense popularity despite its silly pretensions to be a disco movie when its more of a Kungfu vendetta by Jimmy [Mithun ].

Since the 60s when Shammi Kapoor decided to be the Elvis Presley look alike clown and then Jeetendra turned himself into a jumping jack in 70s, Bollywood had never even encountered a decent male dancing star, so after Travolta’s grease and Saturday Night Fever the Bollywood producers were looking for an adroit replacement to make a typical spicy dish to make the masses happy, after Suraksha Mithun had proven he had ample dance potential and Kungfu talents to both outdo the female leads like Kim and beat the white baddies such as Vasco and the other foreign villains employed by Bollywood in the eighties, while his art classics like mrigya were ignored by the mainstream ,he was catapulted to superstardom by the simple equation that allthe other superstars of the day could not even touch him as far as dance and action were concerned, Mr Bachan knew about two steps which he repeated in all his epics equivalent to Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna who could not dance if their life depended on it, just watch movies like Lawaris, Shaan, Amar Akbar Anthony and Dharamveer and you will realise what I am insinuating is absolutely true.

So the Bollywood writers came up with a plot where a poor little boy Jimmy takes on the music mafia, who viciously insult him and his mother and then he wreaks a terrible revenge on them by means of disco dancing his way to the top, when he is not busy punishing the white imported villains with his Kungfu skills. The female lead is only around to be abused as the daughter of the master villain [Mm Shivpuri] and is also the target of Jimmy’s affections. This is vendetta by disco and it tries to settle every score and put every wrong to right by disco dancing, yet the naivety becomes uniquely sincere and affective despite being ludicrously goofy and preposterous offensive.

Well all is not lost as Mithun does manage to give a convincing performance as the sulking, sultry dancer who also manages to rescue some decent dance sequence from the Lahiri’s score which is raucously deafening with flashing strobe lights which will give you epilepsy even if you were perfectly healthy.

So here we have a Bollywood super hit which is a cult classic with the Mumbai aficionados’ but was about five years too late in the making as far as the rest of the globe was concerned.

Yet its popularity in the soviet block and east Europe stems from the fact that Mithun infuses it with a raw dynamism which no Indian or world star possesses and possibly will never be able to muster in my lifetime, so who am I to criticise a movie which is still a rage and despite all the negative criticisms heaped on it remains a cult candy classic in india and abroad ,across the globe ,a coveted position enjoyed by very few Bollywood movies and all this due to the forthright fortitude of Mithun who could give a sincere performance in a movie with an absurd plot and crap direction, where his mother is killed by a guitar by the loathsome villains, and he is very credible as the sorrowful bereaving son, if you have the talent to pull off that sequence convincingly alone, then you deserve to be called a brilliant actor.

Despite its camp music and awfully funny sets which look like a Christmas tree gone wrong its more convincing then Lawaris and Dharamveer, the other blockbusters of the dark era of Indian cinema where plots were missing and melody was bankrupt and superstars ruled the roost.

Mithun at least brought some dignity to male dancing in Indian industry with this outlandish venture which is tasteless but unique in being the first movie of its kind in Bollywood.

If I have offended any fans of DD, I do apologise in anticipation as all cinema serves for is a common intention to entertain, and if it fulfils that motive then it’s fulfilled its purpose.

My final salute and tribute is reserved for Mithun alone as he was able to shape a blockbuster and a disco fever which swept India from a B-GRADE flick with poor production values even by Bollywood standards, that is called a triumph of talent and charisma and I will be grateful if people who disagree with my final assessment are able to provide a single name who has been able to establish him or herself in the same manner.

Bravo and three cheers for MITHUN CHAKRABORTY