Lucky [DVD] [1996]

This movie was really enjoyable almost all the way. It is about Indian school girl (17 years old) Lucky (Sneha Ullal who bears an uncanny resemblance to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan)) who is living in Russia as her father is a diplomat.
Her name is either accurate or ironic. Insurrection happens around Moscow and she gets caught up in it. She is lucky to find another Indian and son of the ambassador Adi (Salman Khan) and their attempts to rejoin the consulate staff (who are being sent home to India for their safety) begins. On their trail to retrieve them is Mithun Chakraborty as a disguise changing retired colonel. Now she is either very lucky in excaping one difficult situation after another - or very unlucky for drawing herself into so many such situations. Along the way Lucky and Adi bond closer.
For me the bonding was the only reason I had a problem with the movie. Not because two people with an actual 22 year age gap couldn't fall in love but Salman looked just far too old for a school girl and one who was being very childlike and girly.
However (and it's a big however) the Russian settings include some magnificent interiors and exteriors and it's quite a different location to use. The music has a lot going for it too. So it can be quite beautiful and the story is an engaging one.
For those that don't like violence there is a lot of symbolic shooting at times but there's not a lot of focus on anything too graphic. It is more a background to what is happening. Even though the focus is on the leading pair, it wasn't so much a romance as an adventure tale.
I quite liked this one (in fact more than I expected to). Elsewhere on the Net it tend to score around average but I'd rate it above average for my taste.

Scenery gorgeous, story good although the Indian Agent was over-the-top clowning (like Fagin in Oliver musical) and not really needed in the story. I suppose he was the link between the diplomatic fathers and Adi and Lucky. Nice acting from Salman Khan and Lucky's eyes spoke volumes. She reminded me of Aishwarya Rai, a younger version though. Some say Salman Khan was too old for this film; too old for the girl in it, but he does admit when they're in the car together, to himself, that she's too young. Anyway the love story is about love moving in mysterious ways and love does exist between older men and younger women, it's not unheard of. The action sequences were realistic too and Salman Khan saves her many times. I really liked this movie but one thing that really irratated me was, along the top of the screen, advertisements of ringtones for this or that particular song kept coming on. This quite spoiled the song and dance routines for me as I watched it. My eyes kept flicking up to the rolling words:- "Tx this number xxxxx to xxxxx to receive this song" over and over as the singers sang and danced. Awful! It interrupted my enjoyment of the story. For this reason I returned the dvd. I really wanted to keep it cause it's a good film. Now I'm wondering if another copy of it would be the same, as I would really like it for keeps.

Lucky (Sneha Ullal), the 17 year old, school-girl daughter of an Indian diplomat, is missing in Moscow as terrorists attempt a violent coup when, by luck, she encounters Adi (Salman Khan), the son of the ambassador. As terrorists and the Russian authorities struggle for power, Lucky and Adi try to make their way home.

The film has a fair amount of not-too-serious action as our protagonists are shot at and pursued by all sides. The music is fun and well picturised, with one particularly stunning set in a gilt palace full of props from fairy tales. Sneha is lovely, despite spending the film looking frightened, and Salman as usual seems to have fun playing himself.

There is a significant age-gap between Adi and Lucky but their romance is treated in a suitably restrained way, with Adi himself concerned his growing attraction to such a young girl. And, after all, this sort of age difference is common in romantic fiction - the only point I found it even remotely uncomfortable here was right at the end of the film, when we returned to reality.

The film is lifted by the beautiful snowy scenes and stunning interiors as Lucky and Adi are pursued from one lovely location to another. And there is a scene-stealing turn by Mithun Chakraborty as India's answer to James Bond (or maybe `Q'), turning up in disguise to rescue our hero and heroine whenever the scriptwriters can't think how to get them out of their latest scrape.

Not the best of Salman Khan's films but an enjoyable candy-floss of a film, nonetheless.