Pyar Ka Karz

So, Mr. Mithun Chakraborty comes up with another of his masala ventures where he plays the dancing star à la Disco Dancer so if to conclude his string of roles of this kind. After all, time flies by when you're having fun, and it's the 1990s already, and it's time to move on. Sadly, this is not a worthy project to do it, although I strangely found it watchable despite its many shortcomings. Pyar Ka Karz is messy, overloaded with many subplots and just never convincing as a story. In terms of filmmaking, it is plain atrocious and watchign some of the action scenes could perfectly explain why. Also terrible is the overdone cruelty of the villains, who are all caricatures from old fairy tales.

Where the film does well is in the appearances of the actors, including the charismatic Mithun, the beautiful and refined Meenakhi Sheshadri, who always makes me wonder how come she never got her due in the film industry despite her amazing beauty and dramatic prowess, and the equally beautiful Neelam, who plays a stereotypical former drug addict but still managed to make me feel for her character. There's a silly subplot with Kader Khan and Aruna Irani. Generally comic subplots are of most annoyance to me, but these two were so wonderfully in sync with the comic tone of their portions that theirs were among my favourite scenes. Dharmendra is also here in a nice and lengthy cameo.

The ending of the show is just as typical as one would expect from a film that just keeps walking that line of high melodramatic sentimentality. I'm not sure anyone except for fans of Mithun Chakraborty would be fond of this film.

Pyar Ka Karz review :

Written and produced by bold and dashing Marathi star Sushama Shiromanee, Pyar Ka Karz was her maiden Bollywood venture featuring Mithun Chakraborty, Meenakshi Seshadri, Sonam and Neelam in lead roles with He-man Dharmendra in an extended cameo. Sushama Shiromanee herself, featured as the dhaba owner in one scene where she refers to herself as Fatakadi (1980) - her iconic character from the super hit Marathi film.

This was the last film where Mithun da appeared as a Disco Dancer in the famous song 'Naina Tere Naino ki'. Dharam played the role of movie ticket blacker Shaka who is forced to marry Mithun da's love interest Meenakshi which leaves him heartbroken and he refuses to dance again à la Disco Dancer (1982). The druggie Neelam then enters Mithun's life and they get married but Neelam's past, in form of rogue Shakti Kapoor who introduced her to drugs, catches up with them.

There was also a parallel comic track of Havaldar Kader Khan and wifey Aruna Irani who nags him to get promoted to Inspector at any cost. A mistaken billa no. 430 (if I recollect right) causes Dharmendra's antics to pass off as committed by Kader Khan leading to a hilarious situation.

Shakti Kapoor was main villain with his catchphrase "Hello. Hello ji.". Real life uncle- niece Raza Murad and Sonam shared screen as gang members.

To sum up, Pyar Ka Karz was a fun watch and I caught it at Novelty cinema in Mumbai. The film worked in the interiors and Bengal territory in particular. An overall average grosser at the box office. Buoyed by its encouraging response, Sushama announced her next film 'Kanoon' which she herself directed. More about that some other time...

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.