Taal, 1999

Taal sacrifices every ounce of plot credibility in pursuit of being a star vehicle for Aishwarya. Taal, along with Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, is one of two 1999 movies credited for making Aishwarya a Bollywood megastar. Taal progresses quickly in the opening, unlike other Indian movies that often get bogged down in an hour or more of expository detail. The lead characters, Mansi (Aishwarya Rai) and Manav (Akshaye Khanna), were nuanced enough for me to suspend disbelief, and Manav's father Tarababu (Alok Nath) gave a lot of life to the countryside poet father. Speaking of countryside, the gorgeous mountainscapes of Himachal Pradesh dominate the opening, as in the much better movie Dor. Manav tells Mansi at one point that this isn't a movie, it's reality, so it was a bitter reality to find the plot go down in flames with events that could only happen in movies. The turning point is when Anil Kapoor's character Vikrant appears, and the plot goes downhill from there. Anil Kapoor plays Vikrant as a cardboard buffoon instead of the fully realized character he could have been. Aishwarya's dancing skills in the second half may make it worth watching, despite plot holes such as these: 1. After suddenly treating his dream girl like dirt, Manav smugly predicts to his father and to Vikrant that they will be instruments of bringing her home to him. This makes the film a "taking her for granted" story rather than a love story. 2. Mansi's father, who supposedly was an obstacle to her marrying anyone at all according to Mansi, suddenly falls in line with "every father's wish" to see his daughter married before he dies, because, although he is not on his deathbed now or even sick, there's no telling what could happen in the future! If this is your first Indian movie, the lack of credibility in the second half could make it your last, unless you just want to look at Aishwarya.

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