Tabu Movies
Striking Indian actor Tabu has had a fair amount of success in her brief career as a performer, taking on roles in roughly 30 films in eight years, mostly in her native India. She is the niece of the even more famous Shabana Azmi. ~ Rovi
Love and dreams follow two starry-eyed actors across three decades and two incarnations in this splashy Hindi musical. It's the early '70s, and Om Prakash Makhija (Shah Rukh Khan) is a young would-be actor who has been playing bit parts in Bollywood musicals while looking for his big break. Om's ambition is to become a film star and win the heart of beautiful screen siren Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone), and his pal Pappu (Shreyas Talpade) and his mother, Bela (Kirron Kher), both encourage him not to give up on his dreams. One day, Om meets Shantipriya on a movie set, and he feels as if destiny is finally smiling on him, but when he overhears her having an argument with studio chief Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal), Om senses things are not as they should be. Before Om can decide what to make of his misgivings, the studio burns to the ground, claiming the lives of Om and Shantipriya. Thirty years later, a bit of Om's spirit seems to live on in Om Kapoor (also played by Shah Rukh Khan), a popular film actor with a large ego and a fear of flame who was born the day the old studio burned down. Despite his fame, Om is lonely, at least until he meets Sandhya (also played by Deepika Padukone), a shy but eager would-be actress looking for her chance to become a star. Om Shanti Om was directed and co-written by Farah Khan, who was a top choreographer in the Indian film industry before moving up to the director's chair, and features guest spots from a number of Bollywood's greatest stars, a few appearing in the form of digital recreations taken from films of the '70s. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shah Rukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, (more)
- 2007
A man in the autumn of his years finds love with a woman three decades his junior in this romantic comedy-drama. Buddha Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is a man in his mid-sixties who has devoted his life to running the most celebrated Indian restaurant in London. Buddha puts his professional life before his personal needs, and has only two close companions -- his mother (Zohra Sehgal), who lives with him and still bosses him around, and a young girl (Swini Khara) who is suffering from a terminal illness. One evening at his restaurant, Buddha encounters a customer who has the nerve to send back a dish, saying it isn't spicy enough, and he meets Nina Verma (Tabu), an attractive and self-assured woman in her thirties who refuses to be intimidated by the restaurateur's reputation. While their first meeting is less than cheerful, fate keeps bringing Buddha and Nina together, and in time they realize they've fallen in love and decide to get married. When Nina learns her father Omprakash (Paresh Rawal) is in the hospital after a heart attack, she flies to India with her fiancé in tow; Buddha, who is several years older than Omprakash, tries to break the news of the coming nuptials to him by asking the father for Nina's hand in marriage. Buddha's respect for tradition leads to a difficult situation when Omprakash refuses to give permission for the May-December lovers to wed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, (more)
A blind Kashmiri girl venturing out into the world for the first time on her own discovers a love with the power to either transform or destroy her in director Kunal Kohli's scenic romance. Zooni Ali Beg (Kajol) is a young girl teetering on the verge of womanhood. As Zooni prepares to fly from the safety of her parent's comfortable nest, her father instills her with the sound wisdom that a person is not defined by their ability to choose between right and wrong, but instead their ability to distinguish between the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. When Zooni's journeys lead her into the arms of flirtatious tour guide Rehan Qadri (Aamir Khan), she willfully ignores the warnings of her well-intending friends and embraces her newfound love wholeheartedly. Though their precious time together finds both Zooni and Rehan transformed by the power of love, Rehan harbors a deadly secret that could prove fatal for the innocent and trusting Zooni. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rishi Kapoor, Aamir Khan, (more)
A couple coming to terms with living in a new culture discover their troubles are compounded by their son in this drama from filmmaker Mira Nair. Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) are a young couple who are brought together in an arranged marriage and soon leave Calcutta to seek their fortune in America. As the couple becomes accustomed to one another, they learn to deal with the coolness and superficiality of life in New York, even as they revel in the opportunities the city offers them. Before long, Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, and pressed to choose a name, they dub the infant Nikhil, though he soon picks up the nickname Gogol, after Ashoke's favorite author. By the time the child is old enough to attend school, he insists upon being called Gogol at all times, and he displays little interest in his Indian heritage. Several years on, Gogol has decided he wants to be called Nick (and is now played by Kal Penn) and has become a thoroughly Americanized teenager, openly rebelling against his parents, smoking marijuana in his room, and dating Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), a preppy blonde from a wealthy family. Ashoke and Ashima are uncertain about how to deal with their son's attempts to cut himself off from their culture, but Nick begins expressing some uncertainty himself when he meets Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson), a beautiful girl who also comes from a family of Indian expatriates. The Namesake was adapted from the bestselling novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Heading to Bombay with her lone surviving relative after she loses her parents and her town is destroyed by religious strife, young Mumtaz (Tabu) has a difficult time adjusting to a place where jobs seems scarce and life is cheap. Informed by distant relative Iqbal (Rajpal Yadav) that the only job available at the time is a position in the sordid Chandni Bar, Mumtaz's guardian, Mamu Irfan, reluctantly accepts the position in order to provide for her young charge. Soon addicted to drugs, Mamu Irfan finds solace only in the company of her equally despondent co-workers. The arrival of corrupt political henchman Potiya (Atul Kulkarni) provides a glimmer of hope as he falls for Mamu Irfan, though after a brief marriage and a pair of children later, Potiya quickly disappears never to be seen again. Despite Mamu Irfan's best efforts to keep Mumtaz and her children shielded from the bleak realities of her own life, fate soon descends a series of crippling blows on the hapless family. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tabu, Atul Kulkarni, (more)
- 2003
Directed by Goutam Ghose, Abar Arannye (In the Forest...Again) follows a group of four middle-class young men on a weeklong vacation from everyday life. Based on characters in Satyajit Ray's Days and Nights in the Forest, the group consists of Ashim Chatterjee (Soumitra Chatterjee), his wife Aparna (Sharmila Tagore), their grown children, and one of their children's friends. A second family accompanies them, and a third individual goes along, as well, despite having been weakened by cancer. The trip, which they had taken as children, is meant as a tribute to their pasts. The innocence of their youth, however, looks unlikely to re-emerge after one of the group goes missing in what is believed to be a political statement of some sort. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, (more)
- 2003
Shakespeare's classic tale of greed and ambition is transplanted to Mumbai's criminal underworld in this adaptation of Macbeth from Indian writer-director Vishal Bhardwaj (Makdee). Bollywood legend Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) stars as Macbeth stand-in Maqbool, the right-hand man of powerful crime boss Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur). When Maqbool begins an illicit affair with Abbaji's beautiful young mistress, Nimmi (Tabu), she convinces her lover to murder his boss and usurp his way to the top of the city's gangster syndicate. ~ Sandra Bencic, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irfan Khan, Pankaj Kapoor, (more)
Aditya (Vivek Oberoi) and Suhani (Rani Mukherjee) are deeply in love, though when their parents meet to arrange the marriage, questions of class soon begin to bring out the worst in everyone. Running away together to shun their families and begin a new life together, the couple devote themselves to one another entirely and vow to make their relationship work despite their meager surroundings. When reality begins to creep into their fairy-tale romance, will love be enough to bond the couple together through the hard times that lie ahead? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rani Mukherjee, Vivek Oberoi, (more)
- 2000
I Have Found It, Rajiv Menon's second feature, is an updated "Kollywood" (Southern India's Tamil-language version of Bollywood) take on Jane Austen's classic novel Sense and Sensibility. Tabu stars as Sowmya, the practical but pessimistic, levelheaded older sister, while former Miss World Aishwarya Rai (who also starred in the British Bollywood-style Austen adaptation, Bride and Prejudice) plays her romantically idealistic younger sister, Meenakshi. Sowmya has had a run of bad luck with potential suitors. This culminates in an embarrassing case of mistaken identity when Manohar (Ajith), a young filmmaker, arrives at her family home intending to ask permission to use it as a shooting location, and is mistaken for a prospective groom. Impressed with the young man's directness, Sowmya accepts his "proposal." Manohar finds himself drawn to the beautiful, depressive woman he's inadvertently humiliated, but insists on completing his first film before legitimately proposing to marry her. He has Sowmya pick his title ("Speed!"), but has a great deal of trouble finding support for his proposed suspense flick. For her part, Meenakshi is waiting for the perfect man to arrive and sweep her off her feet. She only tolerates the attentions of Major Bala (Mammootty), an older gentleman who lost his leg in battle, and owns a nearby flower plantation. He serendipitously encourages her to study music, but she falls for the younger, slicker Srikanth (Abbas), who quotes her favorite poetry, but disappears when his banking business runs into trouble. Acclaimed composer A.R. Rahman (Lagaan) did the music for the film. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Aishwarya Rai
- 1998
Between a documentary about animals and pure Indiana Jones, Hanuman is a children's film that lavishly narrates the tale of Hanuman, the legendary monkey king of India whose father is the wind and the mother a monkey. Hanuman is the most lovable baby monkey one can imagine. He meets Tom who comes to visit the temple in the Valley of Monkeys and tries to protect it from the robbers. A warm relationship develops between the two. The strongest points of this film are the magical landscape of India reminiscent of Rudyard Kipling books and the acting, particularly by Robert Cavanah who stays day and night with little Hanou. Recommend to children of all ages. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Cavanah, Tabu, (more)
Bollywood director Raj N. Sippy's police procedural thriller Case No. 2001 follows two cops - a veteran (Jackie Shroff) and a risk-loving neophyte (Rajat Bedi) - as they attempt to solve an enigmatic series of homicides. The serial killer in question sports an m.o. that involves leaving the number "2001" at the scene of each slaying. As he proceeds to terrorize the urban landscape, the city virtually explodes with tension; to pin him down, the partnered officers courageously step into the seedy underworld and routinely confront the most loathsome criminals in town. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rajat Bedi, Jackie Shroff, (more)
A film that will be most meaningful to those familiar with the complexities of East Indian politics, this drama offers a chilling portrait of a terrorist. Pali joins a guerrilla group after his best friend Jassi, who lives peacefully on a lonely farm with his sister Viran (Pali's fiancee), is wrongfully arrested by the police and tortured for his terrorism. Jassi returns home a crushed man and Pali decides to join the outlaws in their camp. Eventually Viran joins him and with the group leader they plot the assassination of a minister. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1997
Director of the controversial blockbuster Bombay (1995), Mani Rathnam has come up with another entertaining film which threads between high art and soft soap opera. Struggling actor Anandan (Mohanlal) meets poet, screenwriter, and active politician Selvam (Prakash Raj), and a long friendship develops despite the constant shadow of rivalry. This Tamil-language film contains most of Rathnam's constant themes -- power, politics, love, and betrayal -- in the context of Indian politics which have been notoriously linked to cinema. The rise to fame of actor and cult-figure Anandan is loosely based on the life of legendary movie star M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), who became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in the 1970's and stayed in power for ten years. Rathnam parodies Indian politics as well as popular Bollywood cinema. In one particularly daring musical sequence, viewers are given traditional Indian song and dance as part of a film-within-a-film, then see it being shot on set and later fragmented into the real story. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, (more)
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