Amal (2007)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Expected more

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A wonderful film - with an assortment of characters and dialogue at times funny, and other times poignant. It's at the human level with a basic story whose premise, I suppose, is to be happy with what you have and be a good and caring human being. Care for others and everything should fall into place - well this is a story after all - in many ways a fable.This film was a pleasure to watch. Perhaps the ending had few lose ends, after all there was an unresolved murder. But overall its a lot of fun with unpredictable twists and turns with some good footage of New Delhi. A very good character film.

"Amal" offers a sadly forgotten experience: catharsis. It fools the viewer who is nowadays way too much used to happy endings. This is not to say that the movie doesn't has a happy end, but it's probably not a spoiler to say that the end is very much different than one would expect. "Amal" has been criticized for being too didactic, too much centered on the moral of "poor people with rich heart" but I think there are enough greyshades to save the movie from being naive. It is balanced out by having crooks on the "poor" and (although just ultimately) fair characters on the "rich" side. Apart from that, the movie abounds of memorable scenes - there were at least three scenes where I had to stop and rewind the DVD to watch them again and again, especially those with Naseeruddin Shah in the beginning. Acting is superb here and the actors do their best to fill their sometimes - let's be honest - cardboard characters with life. It shouldn't be forgotten that this is an Indian film, and Indian film culture is not really famous for tragic, character-driven movies. After "Amal", we watched a recent Bollywood hit (wife LOVES them, yuck) and the difference was unspeakable. For me, it was sickening to watch the usual dance-and-love-and-marriage rubbish, and yet this is the style of movies that Indian film industry is famous for. Shame... and no wonder that in such a world, Amal's story ends the way it does.

As the film opened I could not help being reminded of the Indian film Manasarovar (2004) about which I commented on this site. One link was the auto rickshaw. Stronger still was the character of Amal and the two male characters of Manasarovar, George and Ravi. These three young men, to my mind, represent the world of the Indian young adults. While Ravi and George were on a search for meaning, in this film, Amal had already reached, largely through the influence of his father, an experiential knowledge of what is meaningful in life. As a result he was happy, although he had a moment of sadness when the little beggar girl he is trying to help dies. But he is not crushed. Like George and Ravi of Manasarovar, Amal delights in helping kids. And all that he does is for others. So, no wonder, if in the end he casually gives the letter that names him as a heir of a millionaire, to a beggar girl who needs a scrap of paper to write. The film says there is joy in life, and joy does not depend on what you own or the superficial pleasures you may indulge in.

Following the legacy of his deceased father, Amal Kumar (Rupinder Nagra) turned down a higher paying job at the post office to drive an auto-rickshaw on the streets of Dehli, India. Maneuvering daily through crowded streets daily to barely eke out a living, Amal is good natured to a fault, refusing to accept tips and always charging the meter rate. Shot on location in India by a Canadian and Indian crew, Richie Mehta's low-budget feature Amal is a charming O'Henry-like tale about class, wealth, and family in India. It is a very worthy first effort that captures the frenetic street life of the city of Dehli and provides a sense of immediacy in the style of Michael Winterbottom, but without the hand-held camera cliché.When Amal refuses to accept a tip and offers cough drops to a gruff old man dressed in rags, G.K. Jayaram (Raseeruddin Shah), the man is convinced he has finally found a good man, a man of principle. When the old man dies suddenly, his family discovers that he has done something no one expected. Though we hear G.K. beautifully singing a traditional song in a café, we are still astonished when the eccentric old man turns out to be a man of means who leaves his fortune to Amal, though the rickshaw driver remains totally unaware of these events. The story concerns how the old man's request is handled by his business partner Suresh (Roshan Seth), his lawyer Sapna Agarwal (Seema Biswas), and his scheming sons Harish (Siddhant Beh) and Vivek (Vik Sahay) who simply want what they feel is owed to them.G.K.'s will contains instructions that his assets will remain locked for thirty days until Amal can be found and the dead man's attorney sets out to locate Amal, not an easy attack in a city with thousands of Amals. Then again, it might be in his attorney's best interests not to find him: if Amal doesn't show up within thirty days, G.K.'s fortune will revert to his sons, with whom Suresh has a secret deal. A few subplots spice up the intrigue over the will but serve only to reinforce the film's underlying message.Amal's develops a romantic interest in Pooja Seth (Koel Purie), a passenger he picks up every day and becomes devoted to the health of a young girl who is run over and injured by his rickshaw while begging in the streets,. Filmed in English and Hindi, Amal was inspired by a real-life experience and story idea by his brother, Shaun Mehta. Together they turned it into a short and then expanded it into a full-length feature in time for the Toronto Film Festival in 2007. While its theme of happiness trumping wealth has been done many times, Amal feels original and an impressive performance from Toronto actor Nagra holds the film together.