Dil Bole Hadippa

As with all bollywood movies that I have been watching this one doesn't disappoint at all with genuinely real native clothing from the country of India. The music is recorded well and no dubbing. The subtitles are easy to follow along with for those who only speak english so I can enjoy the story line being played out. The length is long enough to get lost in the scenery from a far off country, completely wrapped up and lose a sense of time in the well written characters acting out their parts in the build up. The plot has nice twists and the singing is well done with flair, their energy is intoxicating almost dream like you completely forget about the longer film time compared to main stream American movies. These films are still conservative to be enjoyed by a family with just enough romance, suspense, with the right music that you can safely show it to teen agers with an adult in the room for supervision. This is written, and directed right along with classic older American movies pre=1970's with family conservative values in mind. Thank you Bollywood for keeping things authentic, I could almost smell the spices from the food and enjoyed the playful humor, keen wit of the storyline with the actors. Keep making the magic happen! Love this!!! From an East Coast American Fan!

CONTAINS SPOILERS!! I know a lot of people have compared this film to the 2006 film "She's the man". I think it goes a little deeper than that. It's the story of Rani's character,she dreams of playing cricket & making it big. Rani works for a travelling production company,where she works as a makeup artist. Anupam Kher has a cricket team that seem to lose to the opposing team every time. He asks his son who is a hot shot Rugby player in the U.K. to come to India to train his team & take over. Anupam's son is Shahid. Shahid lives with his mom in London.Shahid"s parent's are divorced, and Shahid is totally disconnected from his Indian roots-his father longs for him to love India as much as he does. Shahid takes over the team & there are open tryouts. Rani goes to the tryouts only to be rejected only b/c she's a woman. She decides to return dressed as a man. When Rani sees that everyone believes her to be a man she figures she can go ahead with her plan. Rani's abilities at playing cricket are exceptional & she becomes the team's star player. Within time Rani becomes Shahid's favorite player. Shahid's car gets stuck in the countryside & he hitches a hayride with Rani as herself. Shahid & Rani don't hit it off as Rani is completely Punjabi & Shahid believes himself to be more of a Londoner than embracing his Punjab roots. Shahid refers to Rani as a "Buffalo Girl". Rani despises Shahid at first but as the movie progresses she begins to fall for him. In a particular shower scene is when Rani's true self is almost revealed-when Shahid walks into the men's shower room & comes face to face with Rani as herself!!! Rani comes up.with the story that she's Veer's twin sister "Veera". Indignified that Shahid may have seen her nude she exits. Shahid continues to.think of her. On a country road Shahid who's accompanied by a girl that's in love w/him "Soniya" & his father Anupam-comes face to face with Rani (Veera). Veera's production company truck has stopped in the middle of the road & Anupam uses this as an opprtunity to ask Veera to show him the countryside & beauty of India. Veera takes him to the countryside & it is within this trip that Shahid reconnects w/his Punjab roots & falls in love w/Veera. Shahid asks Veer if he can date Veera (Rani) & to deliver a letter to Veera. In the letter Shahid asks Rani to meet him for a date at a specific location. Rani shows up dressed beautifully & Shahid is smitten by her beauty & charm. Shahid asks her to be his girl. Rani tells him she'll tell him the next day after the big Cricket tournament. At the tournament, in the midst of the action Veer's contact lens falls out & Shahid picks it up.off the field. Shahid calls Veer over & notices one of his eyes is Yellow/Green & the other is black like the contact lens he holds in his hand. Shahid immediately figures out that Veer/Veera are the same person! During an intermission Shahid asks Rani why did she pose as a man?! She explains why. Shahid also asks if Rani has really fallen in love w/him or if that's also part of the act. Rani tells Shahid that she's truly in love w/him & how sorry she is for causing him pain. Anupam tells Shahid that he shouldn't be so hard on her & allow her to continue to play the rest of the tournament. Shahid allows Rani to continue in the participation of the tournament. In the end Shahid's team wins due to the efforts of Rani. Shahid goes to collect the prize & he asks Veer to come up to the microphone. Veer takes off the wig & contacts to reveal herself as Veera. The crowd being biased against a woman participating in a male dominated sport-boo her. Rani gives a very effective & somewhat feminist speech-explaining how she had to become a man to participate b/c whenshe came as herself she was completely discriminated against. The crowd changes their attitude upon hearing Veera's version of events. Shahid & Rani stay together. All of the songs in this film are awesome!!!! The dance numbers are absolutely top notch!!! At the end of the credits there's an additional song which is awesome!!! If you're looking for romance mixed with comedy-this is absolutely perfect. I'm a fan of Rani-she's not only gorgeous but talented. Shahid brings his dance talent into this film- I was totally engaged with his gorgeous looks & dance numbers!! I've seen this movie 5 times & I don't tire of it :)

I realized right off the bat that if I stopped questioning if Rani is believable as a man or not, the movie would be a lot more fun. Knowing nothing about Cricket, I thought she was believable as a batsman but it seems like maybe size and strength would matter more than it does in the Cricket scenes. I really enjoyed the Cricket scenes and believe that Baseball could learn a lot from Cricket on how to make Baseball less boring. Would like to see a real Cricket match someday.There is some goofiness in this film that is no harder to watch than the goofiness in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or DDLJ. I did like Rani in the back-of-the-truck scene where she speaks with poor English, chews on sugar cane and spits out chewed cane sometimes toward Shahid in defiance of his self-proclaimed Indianness. Seems like there is a new side to her acting in every film.There are some scenes where Shahid is intense and very very good and some scenes where he doesn't seem to feel what he is doing, but it doesn't hurt the film much.Okay, the main reason I buy Indian films is for the music and dancing and Dil Bole Hadippa does not disappoint on that count. There are 3 big dance songs and my favorite (by a little) is the big carnival dance, Discowale Khisko. Some of the wording and movement in that dance set up an outrageously funny collision between Sherlyn Chopra and Rakhi Sawant. There is a fairly loud ringing-ching from jewelry and bangles due to the collision - wonderful humor in acknowledgement of how much jewelry these women sometimes wear. Rani, Shahid and backup dancers really get with it in these drum driven dances.Bottom line: story 4 - 5 because of the moral, Cricket scenes 4 - 5 because I've never seen it before, acting 3 - 5 because it's all over the place (blame the director) and music and dancing a solid 5. So I guess a strong 4 overall but a 5 if you are into Indian songs, drums and dancing.