Reviews & Ratings for
कोयला (1997)

I took advantage of ErosNow's featuring obscure SRK movies for the Diwali holiday to watch Koyla [coal]. I'm kind of stumped as to how high to rate it, wavering between 2 1/2 and three stars.

Yes, this movie is old fashioned campy overacting Bollywood, and yet....Madhuri Dixit and SRK's performances are really something to see (despite SRK's horrible mullet hair). There is SO much plot in this action/thriller/drama. SRK plays a mute for most of the film, so he really has to act with his eyes, and you see so much. He starts the film running with hunting dogs and catching a bird that Raja [Amrish Puri] has just shot. He brings back the bird kneeling, with bowed head, and Raja calls him his loyal slave. Yes, really, he's basically a slave to this self-called coal mine owner/king. Amrish Puri is totally creepy and cruel as Raja, and the guy that plays his psycho brother is even worse.

Raja has some trouble getting it up with his sexy secretary, and one of his flunkies suggests he get a fresh young girl. He tricks Gauri, a young village girl (Madhuri) into marriage by sending her a picture of Shankar (SRK). She immediately falls in love with Shankar's picture, but when during the veiled wedding ceremony she sees Shankar serving the guests, she falls into a faint. Raja drags her inert body through the rest of the ceremony, and then threatens to rape her and locks her away. Gauri and Shankar fall in love, and the pair try to run away.

When Raja and his evil brother eventually capture them, Gauri is thrown into a brothel (where Raja had previously dumped his sexy secretary) and Shankar is thrown over a cliff and presumed dead. Shankar regains his voice and he and Gauri ultimately exact their revenge. We learn that the original cause of Shankar's muteness is that Raja stuffed hot coals down his throat to prevent him identifying his parents' murderers. And there's even MORE plot that I'm just skipping over.

I didn't get all the Hindu symbolism to the story of Shankar/Shiva and Gauri/Durga. I recommend you read this review which lays it all out: http://bollywoodfangirl.blogspot.com/2010/03/koyla-or-mute-stable-boys-ftw.html

What I really liked in this movie: the dance numbers. Madhuri Dixit remains one of my favorite dancers and SRK has a few great dance numbers, too. The scene at a temple for Shiva where Raja burns her arms to try to make her say aloud that she will obey her husband, and then Shankar starts beating on a drum which sends Gauri into a wild frenzied classical dance was the highlight of the movie for me.
Shankar is mute, so Gauri isn't sure about him at first and if he's part of Raja's evil plan. When she sees him get a beating for trying to save the sexy secretary from a rape, and then goes to tend his injuries, you see him flinch at her light touch and without words SRK has shown us the legacy of his life of abuse as Raja's slave.

I liked how Gauri and Shankar grow over the course of the film and gradually lose their naivete and innocence so that they can ultimately defeat Raja and his evil brother and minions. The relationship between Gauri and the sexy secretary is interesting, too. You would think the secretary would have her reasons to hate Gauri for supplanting her, but in the film both women support each other and defend each other at different points in the plot. It's really something that the filmmaker didn't fall into the usual cliches for the two women.

What I didn't like: I basically just don't get the humor of Johnny Legend. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the parts of the film that were supposed to be comic relief didn't do much for me.

Shankar(Shah rukh khan) is a mute person who works under a wealthy businessman Raja Saab(Amrish puri) who has underworld contact. Raja Saab likes Gauri(Mashuri diksit) but Gauri asks to see a picture of the groom, so raja saab sends Shankar's picture, and gauri falls in love with him and agrees to marry but at the wedding, Gauri sees that she is getting married to Raja Saab, refuses to continue with the rituals of the marriage and thus raja saab gets angry and locks her in a room till she agrees for the marriage. Circumstances forced Shankar and Gauri to fall in love and they run away but are caught by Raja and his men, who beats Shankar and throw him to his death and Gauri is taken back to Raja Saab. But shankar survives and takes the revenge from raja saab and his men by killing them all.Good movie,good acting, good songs,a one timer.