Sometimes (well, quite often really, due to my suspect tastes) I see a film which wasn’t a hit and I was like “WHY, GOD, WHY?”
And Badshah is one of them.
Badshah(1999)— My Guilty Pleasure
Despite the magical combination of Shahrukh in his prime and Director duo Abbas-Mastan, backup from Twinkle and evergreen Johny lever, and with a ludicrously funny and unusual plot, this movie apparently bombed at the box office.
The hilarious chaos is presented with great relish and plenty of styles, and manages to stay on track and is nicely paced. Even the flaws only add to its charms. And all this is embellished with the funniest way I could I have ever imagined.
The film begins in Goa, where Chief Minister Gayatri Bachchan (Raakhee) who is popular among the people for her devotion to their welfare. But not everyone appreciates her public service, including his husband.
Suraj Singh Thapar—a business tycoon— whose bio-chemical plant is to be shut down by CM regarding some public security misconduct. As a result, he resolves to have her kill and hires a contract killer to assassinate her
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Amidst all this madness, Raj (Shah Rukh ) is a young man runs Baadshah (private) Detective Agency. In his employ are his loyal and helpful friends, and his chief assistant Ram Lal (Johnny Lever).
A businessman named Jhunjhunwala hires him to woo his daughter Seema away from the man she thinks she loves and get her engaged to the man he wants her to marry, Nitin. Raj accomplishes at least the first part of his assignment somehow by pretending to be blind.
According to plan, Raj now has to break her heart. He does it, but nobody at the Badshah Detective Agency feels particularly triumphant in their success.
It turns out, Jhunjhunwala is not Seema’s father at all, but Nitin’s; he is guilty of bank fraud and is banking on his son Nitin’s marriage to Seema to save himself from prosecution. And in fact, he is now arrested by CBI Agent Deepak Malhotra.
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At the same time, before reaching the venue to kill the C.M. the killer got killed in a vehicle accident, altering the CBI who decides to send one of their officers Deepak Malhotra whose code name is Baadshah on a mission called "Maa" so that he can conduct a thorough investigation.
Unfortunately, Thaper gets wind of this and also has Deepak killed in the process; replacing Baadshah is one of Thapar's henchman.
But another man named Raj who is also called Baadshah gets mistaken for the one sent on the mission both by Thapar and the CBI. Calamity destructs Raj when Thapar abducts some of his friends and are holding them as hostages until he carry out the assassination of the C.M.
But our man, like any other Bollywood movie, makes all things right in the end—from saving the C.M. and a girl to make Seema fall in love with him again.
In the end, Baadshah is seen to have booming business back at his detective agency. Ram Lal receives a call President Bill Clinton, offering $1,000,000 for assistance with the "Monica Case".
Though it is not one of my favorite Bollywood movies, Badshah is still my guilty pleasure. And indeed a worthy one. Not to mention this movie propelled me into helpless and undying SRK fandom.
This film is exactly why I feel blessed to have discovered Hindi cinema. But I live in fear of running out of movies like this.
Image Source- Google