Review of Humjoli

Humjoli (1970)
5/10
Watch only for its nostalgic value. Unimpressive story
21 September 2011
Story: The overall theme is nothing new, but could have been written into a good story. However as it turns out the story is completely idiotic and many details are painfully illogical.

Dances: Physical Training (PT) scenes are portrayed in an amusing manner. For a few minutes you can enjoy them as 'what are they doing?' In any classical sense bad.

Songs: A couple of songs were above average.

Acting: Overall below average. Jetendra was fine, but Leena Chandavarkar was not so good. I have seen some good acting from her in other movies. Here, she looks as if she just cannot act. Just as an example, in at least one scene she glances directly into camera while delivering a dialog. An actor cannot do that, unless they are addressing the audience.

Action sequence: Fight scenes were pathetic. Would have been fine for a kid's movie.

Comedy: Excruciatingly painful and misplaced intermittently throughout the film. Apparently the producer/directors must have been taught that comedy scenes are (were in 60s) compulsory in any good Hindi flick. So they forcefully added comedy scenes that had no relevance to the main story. Mehmood, for instance, was an outstanding comedian in his time. Unfortunately, he was used in extremely ludicrous ways in many Hindi films and 'Humjoli' is no exception. Just like the fight scenes, the comedy is suitable for kids under age of 8.

Overall Rating: 5. This includes 2 points purely for the nostalgic value you get from watching a 1970s movie. So, if you are a younger generation, you might consider this film as a '3' or lower. Even though I rated it so low, I did not think I made a mistake in watching it. I still wish to continue watching more 1950-1979 movies - again, for the nostalgic attribute.
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