Lal Patthar

Lal Patthar (1971) is a Bollywood Drama starring Raj Kumar as Kumar Bahadur Gyan Shankar Rai and Hema Malini as Saudamani/Madhuri. The plot is a bit confusing and the premise long, but essentially this movie is about adultery. Raja Kumar Bahadur falls in love with a woman named Saudamani. He brings her home and renames her Madhuri but he does not marry her. Afterwards, he ends up marrying a woman named Sumita in order to pay off her debts and free her in a bargain.

The film starts off pretty funny and has some good scenes, but overall it's not great and does not have anything that makes it stand out from other films. I've watched other Bollywood films that I found easier to follow and enjoyed more than this film and was surprised at the ratings this movie received. The one thing that I really did enjoy about this film was the acting of the star, Hema Malini.

You might enjoy this film if you like classic Bollywood dramas, but if you are not a fan of this genre, you may not enjoy this film. Since it's in Hindi, if you are not fluent in the language, you will have to watch it with subtitles and therefore the film requires more of your attention span. It's also quite long, spanning over 2 hours which is long by Hollywoods standards, but short by Bollywood's standards. I'm not sure why all Bollywood films are musicals, but if you have watched Bollywood movies before, it won't be a surprise to you that this film is also a musical. The songs are okay, but nothing special. Overall, I found it kind of boring with few redeeming qualities.