Before I begin, let me tell you that I don't think my comment contains any spoilers. However, others might disagree, so I've told IMDb that it does. If I were you, I'd just read on. You need to know why you shouldn't see "Mastana."
The basic premise of "Mastana" is the story of how a five-year-old rich girl develops a close relationship with a poor man in his early 40's. See, this girl has been alienated by her wealthy snobbish parents and is essentially being raised by her hellraising governess. (Yikes!) But then, she gets lost in the middle of a rainstorm, just happens to come across the hut of poor Satya (Mehmood), and arrives just in time to stop him from hanging himself (the scene is actually pretty funny).
So, from there, they become friends. She starts to teach him how to read and he starts loving her like a daughter. You can imagine that her parents don't take too kindly to their daughter loving a poor man more than them. They constantly bad-mouth Satya and forbid him from seeing her again (standard Bollywood class warfare). But then, Satya comes in and saves the little girl from kidnappers. Go Satya! And then, everyone lives happily ever after. Or not.
See, in the dead center of the movie, Satya saves the girl from kidnappers. That would've been a nice way to end the movie. Except, that's where the movie really begins. After that, Satya continues to see the little girl against her parents' wishes. If you ask me, Satya is just ASKING for trouble. Then, without giving anything away, other complications arise that involve violations of one of the cardinal rules of film-making: cute little girls should never get hurt. (That's not a spoiler; that's a warning.)
"Mastana" is bad. Really bad. If the story had ended in the middle of the movie, I would have said it was okay. But then they decided to throw in all these complications and all this drama, not to mention Mehmood's seriously overdone performance as Satya, whose affection for the little girl is particularly and sickeningly overdone. Quite frankly, it borders on...nah, I won't go there. The plot's lack of realism is staggering. My favorite "this is the furthest thing possible from reality" moment (and there are many many many in "Mastana") is when the little five-year-old girl is standing on stage and is asked to describe her parents in one sentence. She sings a five-minute song off the top of her head that involves high-level symbolism and metaphors about how she has seen her mother but not her mother's love. At the end, everyone applauds and her governess is particularly proud of her. Bad bad bad!
Do not waste your time with this. That's all I have to say. This movie is not just bad, it's BAD!
The basic premise of "Mastana" is the story of how a five-year-old rich girl develops a close relationship with a poor man in his early 40's. See, this girl has been alienated by her wealthy snobbish parents and is essentially being raised by her hellraising governess. (Yikes!) But then, she gets lost in the middle of a rainstorm, just happens to come across the hut of poor Satya (Mehmood), and arrives just in time to stop him from hanging himself (the scene is actually pretty funny).
So, from there, they become friends. She starts to teach him how to read and he starts loving her like a daughter. You can imagine that her parents don't take too kindly to their daughter loving a poor man more than them. They constantly bad-mouth Satya and forbid him from seeing her again (standard Bollywood class warfare). But then, Satya comes in and saves the little girl from kidnappers. Go Satya! And then, everyone lives happily ever after. Or not.
See, in the dead center of the movie, Satya saves the girl from kidnappers. That would've been a nice way to end the movie. Except, that's where the movie really begins. After that, Satya continues to see the little girl against her parents' wishes. If you ask me, Satya is just ASKING for trouble. Then, without giving anything away, other complications arise that involve violations of one of the cardinal rules of film-making: cute little girls should never get hurt. (That's not a spoiler; that's a warning.)
"Mastana" is bad. Really bad. If the story had ended in the middle of the movie, I would have said it was okay. But then they decided to throw in all these complications and all this drama, not to mention Mehmood's seriously overdone performance as Satya, whose affection for the little girl is particularly and sickeningly overdone. Quite frankly, it borders on...nah, I won't go there. The plot's lack of realism is staggering. My favorite "this is the furthest thing possible from reality" moment (and there are many many many in "Mastana") is when the little five-year-old girl is standing on stage and is asked to describe her parents in one sentence. She sings a five-minute song off the top of her head that involves high-level symbolism and metaphors about how she has seen her mother but not her mother's love. At the end, everyone applauds and her governess is particularly proud of her. Bad bad bad!
Do not waste your time with this. That's all I have to say. This movie is not just bad, it's BAD!