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.

Suman Shakya Considering the story and its treatment, "Raja Hindustani" doesn't rise above the average romantic movies from Bollywood. The same plot of a poor hero falling for a rich girl, the opposition from the rich heroine's family, heroine's step mother's play to embezzle the property and create misunderstandings has been repeated in this one without much of novelty in the script. The character of the hero, heroine, the misunderstandings created between them, and the climax all look pretty jaded. The comedy of Johnny Lever is also overdone and looks boring. All this and more you need to endure for the three hours. If there is anything that you can praise of the film, it's the good music from the music duo Nadeem-Shravan and good performances from Aamir Khan and Karishma Kapoor who were awarded the coveted Filmfare Awards for their performances. Anyway, the film became the most successful Hindi Movie of the year out-casting Sanjay Leela Bhansali's heart touching family drama "Khamoshi" taking the audience by surprise showing still the demand of old escapist dramas against good heart warming stories like "Khamoshi".Rating: 1 star out of 4

wajeehkhan01 Raja Hindustani, released in 1996, was a huge blockbuster. It swept nearly all the awards at Filmfare that year and the actors and songs became a sensation.But nowadays people look back and have begun to criticize the film, saying that it is cheesy, over the top, and stuff like that. Sure, it has some faults, like a typical clichéd Bollywood love story that is up and down, cheesy dialogues, and some quality mistakes. I admit, the story was kind of stupid. But honestly, it's a Bollywood film, so what do you expect. I mean many of Shah Rukh Khan's films have all these things as well, but you don't really see people criticizing those.There were two reasons why I liked this film, and why it entertained me. First, the performances. Karisma Kapoor did pretty good, she danced well, and looked good overall throughout the film. Raja Hindustani also contains one of Aamir Khan's finest performances. One of his underrated ones actually, if you look at it today. He was earnest, likable, he was excellent emotionally, and overall really impressed me. He didn't really overact as SRK does. Besides the performances there was also the music. Who can forget Raja Hindustani's songs? Nadeem-Shravan and singers Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan did great by singing songs such as Pardesi Padres and Aaye Ho Meri Zindagi Mein. There was also some good comedy throughout the film. Overall, I think Raja Hindustani is a pretty good entertainer, I don't understand why people don't like it anymore.

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.