Hulchul - my grandma is soo much nicer

Family feuds movies can really be fun and cool. You usually have a bunch of male relatives who love to beat the crap out of the male progeny of the rival family. There is an obligatory Romeo and Juliet story. A best friend who innocently gets caught in the line of fire and serves as comic relief. Some well-meaning family members, some mean ones, vaghairah, vaghairah.
Masala all around.










Hulchul is one such movie. It had in fact a rather tough initiation with me as it was my first Priyadarshan work and as such a bit much to swallow. But I stayed the course, if only for Beth´s ki FPMBF Akshaye. And I rewatched it about a year ago and actually liked it, but by then I already had fought myself through a good share of "funnier" movies. So I was a bit more amenable to it.

The two families here consist of one purely male household, with dad Amrish Puri and his four bachelor sons Jackie Shroff, Paresh Rawal, Arbaaz Khan aur chota baccha Akshaye Khanna.










This no-women-allowed club is in deep feud with the family of a pretty vengeful Laxmi and her, apart from Suni(e)l *Yummi* Shetty, pretty wishy-washy sons. After a not too nice interference with the wedding plans of Laxmi´s granddaughter Kareena Kapoor from the side of the Puri clan, the old bat comes up with a revenge plan.










How about making Akshaye fall in love with Kareena and so plant discord in her enemies anti-wife/anti-marriage familiy?
The intial idea is really not too bad, and Akshaye´s friend Arshad *Yay* Warsi has a similar plan for him and so both of them start a naqli courtship. Visualised in one of my most favorite song sequences of all times.










But as perfect plans go, this one "surprisingly" fails miserably as Kareena and Akhaye really fall in love with each other and now have to face the wrath of both their respective families. And it gets masala-law like confusing. Loyalties get mix up - or not. We have brothers beating each other. Secrets that are unveiled. Different weddings have to be prevented by different parties. The usual. Not too terribly exciting.










And still, I like it. I mean. C´mon. Akhaye. Arshad. Suniel. Jackie. Even Arbaaz. And a really beautiful Kareena (Love the hair. Totally). Not to forget an elephant and a totally unnecessary garam item number.