The Gorilla's Lament

Stories about the music industry tend to be almost as formulaic as sports movies; naive but fantastically talented outsider catches a lucky break, shoots to stardom, and is immediately sucked into a cesspool of depravity, hedonism, and general bad behavior. It seems you can’t have rock & roll without the sex and drugs . . . except in India. If Bollywood is to be believed, Indian music stars don’t have time to become drug addicted narcissists because they’re too busy dealing with reincarnation, evil monarchs, and crippling guitar phobia. Rock Dancer (1995) continues this fine tradition. It’s the story of a reluctant superstar stalked by a sinister masked villain, and it has about as much to do with rock music as Disco Dancer does with disco, focusing instead on big haired mass market pop music from the mid eighties.

Jaya, Rakesh, and J.J. (the IMDB entry for this movie lists the supporting cast but not the leads by character name, so I’m not sure who’s who, but J.J. is definitely Javed Jaffrey) are the most popular rock dancers in the country, even though they’re only performing in order to raise money to build a hospital. (In Bollywood, becoming a major star in order to raise money in a hurry is a perfectly reasonable plan.) Jaya has a sleazy alcoholic husband, Raj, a precocious daughter, Pinky, and a sister named Ritu (Ritu Shivpuri), who has no interest in becoming a rock dancer herself.

And then tragedy strikes. Jaya is shot during a concert, and for some reason the doctors treating her decide to amputate her leg. In order to fulfill her sister’s dream of building a hospital, Ritu agrees to take her place, and one montage later, Ritu is dancing up a storm onstage while her sister flashes her a bittersweet smile.

And then Jaya is murdered, apparently by her husband, who has disappeared. Ritu makes arrangements for Pinky and then goes back on the road, moire determined than ever to fulfill her sister’s dream. In Goa, she meets Rocky, a jittery, overly enthusiastic fan who likes to hang around her hotel doing favors for celebrities and is really good at shoving autograph seekers out of the way. Rocky is our romantic lead.

Before Ritu and her new boytoy have a chance to do much canoodling, she gets a call from Raj, who tells her he didn’t murder anybody and asks her to meet him at a place called Landmark. (Yes, Landmark. Fortunately Rocky knows where it is.) By the time they reach Landmark, though, Raj is murdered by a mysterious masked man and his motorcycle riding henchmen, and it’s clear that Ritu is the next target.

It’s all leading up to one of the most confusing climaxes in Bollywood history, featuring no less than five dramatic entrances, a small girl strapped with bombs and then strung up like a pinata, an evil twin, and a character who turns out to be Govinda in disguise. (Not a character played by Govinda; Govinda, the actor, disguises himself as one of the characters so he can help our heroes during the big fight scene.) It’s bright and colorful and enthusiastic and makes absolutely no sense. Rather like the movie as a whole.

Meanwhile, there are subplots and supporting actors. Johny Lever plays Inspector Johnny, a star struck police officer who harasses various veteran Bollywood actors he catches hanging around Ritu, but never seems to notice her making goo-goo eyes at Rocky. Mac Mohan has a surprisingly large part as Jaya’s lawyer. And British pop singer Samantha Fox shows up for an item number and acquits herself rather well; she’s clearly having a good time, and she’s able to match Govinda step for step, which is no easy thing.

Perhaps the craziest thing about Rock Dancer is that it exists at all. The movie doesn’t try to hide its influences; it’s clear that someone set out to make a movie like Disco Dancer and they nearly succeeded, despite not having access to Mithun Chakraborty. This is the sort of movie you need to see to believe, and you should have good friends with you when you watch it so that someone can confirm your crazy stories.