Rangeela (1995 film)
Rangeela is a 1995 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film written, directed and produced by Ram Gopal Varma. It stars Aamir Khan, Jackie Shroff and Urmila Matondkar. The film was A. R. Rahman's debut Hindi film with an original score and soundtrack, as his previous Hindi releases were dubbed versions of his Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films.
The film was a major box office success and received critical acclaim, and was screened at the mainstream section of the International Film Festival of India. The film was reported to have inspired the 2004 movie Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
The film won seven Filmfare awards that year. They were: Best actor in supporting role, Best choreography, Best Costume Designing, Best Story, Best Music, the RD Burman Award, and a Special Jury Award, for "Tanha Tanha".
Plot
A street-toughened orphan by the name of Munna is befriended by some kind folks, whose effervescent daughter Mili soon grows to be his best buddy. Both gravitate toward the Mumbai movie industry. While Mili finds occupation as a movie extra, Munna earns his livelihood selling movie tickets in the black market.Mili has ambitions of becoming an actress. Fortune glances her way when she dances her way into a movie star's attention. This actor, Raj Kamal, arranges for her to be auditioned for the heroine's role in his upcoming movie called Rangeela. Mili's shortcomings amount to distractions, but thanks in no small way to Munna and Raj, she lands the role.
Raj and Munna both fall for Mili, but Mili is too busy making the movie to notice any of this. She starts spending a lot of time with Raj during the filming. Munna tries many times to tell Mili that he loves her, but he is unable to, or Raj gets in the way. Eventually, feeling inferior, Munna decides to leave Mili to Raj, who can give her a better life than he can. The matter is not resolved though, as Mili hears of this on the film's opening night. She asks Raj to help her find Munna, which he does after realizing that Mili seems to love Munna and not him.
Mili stops Munna midway, misunderstandings get cleared up and the lovers unite.
Cast
- Aamir Khan as Munna
- Jackie Shroff as Raj Kamal
- Urmila Matondkar as Mili Joshi
- Gulshan Grover as Steven Kapoor
- Avtar Gill as P.C.
- Reema Lagoo as Mrs. Joshi
- Achyut Potdar as Mr. Joshi
- Rajesh Joshi as Pakya
- Neeraj Vora as Drunk party guest
- Rajeev Mehta as Restaurant Steward
- Nitin Chandrakant Desai
- Ram Mohan as Make-Up Dada
- Shammi as Gulbadan's mother
- Tarun as Tough guy at the shooting
- Suman as Motilal
- Himanshu
- Aditya Narayan as himself
- Saroj Khan as herself
- Remo D'Souza as a background dancer in title song
- Shefali Chhaya as Gulbadan
- Madhur Bhandarkar in a special appearance
Reception
Soundtrack
The soundtrack featured 7 songs composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Mehboob and an instrumental theme song. The audio was released in September 1995 by Rahman's mother Kareema and the soundtrack proved immensely popular upon release. It is listed in almost all lists of best Bollywood soundtracks.The soundtrack fetched Rahman two filmfare awards, Filmfare Best Music Director Award and Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent. Mehboob got two nominations for Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist, for the tracks "Kya Kare" and "Tanha Tanha". Shweta Shetty and Kavita Krishnamurthy were nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer for their respective tracks.
Asha Bhosle, like her sister Lata Mangeshkar, had long retired from accepting playback singer awards, but she received the Filmfare Special Award that year for her rendition of the song "Tanha Tanha".
The song "Yaaro Sun Lo Zara" was originally composed for a Telugu film Super Police as "Baabu Love Cheyyara". The soundtrack was also released in Tamil, with title Rangeela itself and lyrics penned by Vairamuthu. However, the reused track "Yaaro Sun Lo Zara" was not included in the Tamil version. The soundtrack rights are now acquired by Tips Music Company.
Hindi
Tamil (dubbed version)
Telugu (dubbed version)
Trivia
- The name 'Rangeela' was based on the character of Munna by Aamir Khan. But it was Urmila Matondkar who became synonymous after the success of the film. She would often be termed by the media as 'Rangeeli' in publications and in popular culture.
- Urmila Matondkar was not the initial choice for Mili's Role. Ram Gopal Varma wanted to cast Sridevi in the film. He also approached Manisha Koirala for the role.
- To get into the role of a Mumbaiya Tapori, Aamir Khan actually spent some of his time with Real Taporis in the real slums of Mumbai. Aamir worked on his diction, dialogue delivery and body language to portray the character convincingly.
- Ram Gopal Varma was apparently not happy with Saroj Khan's choreography of 'Tanha Tanha'. So he appointed Ahmed Khan to choreograph rest of the songs. However, its another fact that the choreography of Saroj Khan in 'Tanha Tanha' became the talk of the town and earned her widespread acclaim.
- The title credits of the film that features the legendary actors and actresses of Indian Cinema were especially put on display as a token of love from Ram Gopal Varma to the Industry. In his words, Rangeela was a tribute dedicated to the beauty of Indian Cinema.
- Rangeela remains RGV's only successful light hearted film that consisted of romance, music and comedy. After that he shifted his focus to thriller and gangster films. Although he attempted to make another light hearted film Mast in 1999. That film could not replicate the success of Rangeela.
- Aamir Khan accepted in an interview later that he did not like the music when he first heard it and had not much expectation out of it. Even Asha Bhosle whose career also got a boost with this film did not like the songs much when narrated to her for the first time.
- Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar appears in a cameo of an Assistant Director to Steven Kapoor played by Gulshan Grover.
- According to popular public opinion, it has been widely reported that actor Aamir Khan stopped attending award functions after he did not win the Best Actor Award for his performance in Rangeela. On the contrary, it was Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander for which Aamir lost the award to Anil Kapoor for Beta which led to the disappointment of the former after which he boycotted the award functions.
Cultural significance
Despite the film's huge success, It was still regarded as a film ahead of its time as the films made during the early 1990s had dated plots and storylines. Shekhar Kapur called it 'The film of the 21st Century with great music and visuals' at the screening of the film. The presentation of Urmila Matondkar in the film became the talk of the town as it re-invented the image of the Bollywood Heroine. Aamir Khan played an unusual character of a Mumbaiya Tapori in the early stages of his career and that proved to be the milestone for him. A R Rahman's music of the film became such a rage that it topped the charts for almost a decade. The songs still remain popular as they have a fresh feel. The film established careers of so many technicians and the people who worked behind the camera.