Producer: Kulbhushan Gupta
Director : Manoj Agrawal
*ing: Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Shilpa Shetty, Shashi Kala, Satish Kaushik
Music: Anand Raaj Anand

Released on : November 13, 1998

Reviewed by: Akhlaq Hussain
akhlaq@indolink.com

out of 
Pardesi Babu is a typical commercial love-triangle film, filled with the usual dose of emotions, comedy, and action for the viewer. The story revolves around Raju Pardesi (Govinda) who leaves his village to go to Mumbai after his step-mother declares him useless. Raju knows an old village friend by the name of Happy Singh (Satish Kaushik) who lives in Mumbai but unfortunately Happy lives in his office and cannot house Raju. Through Happy's help, Raju gets a room in a chaal owned by Mai (Shashikala). She insists that there should be no ladies, drinking, or smoking in the quarters as this is a family facility. Of course for our story to evolve, a girl by the name of Cheeni (Shilpa Shetty) runs away from her own engagement as it is with someone she does not want to marry. She arrives in Raju's room and slowly but SURELY falls in love with our hero. Unfortunately though, Cheeni's father puts a reward out to anyone who can return Cheeni to him and a stuttering fellow in the quarters calls her father and has her returned home. Cheeni's father meets Raju and puts one condition forth in order for him to marry Cheeni: earn one crore within one year or forget Cheeni forever.

Out of sheer luck in a railway station, our hero's bag is exchanged with that of a crook who has stolen several lakhs. With this "new found money," Raju and Happy invest in a tea which supposedly contains no caffeine and still retains the taste of normal tea developed by a "scientist" in Raju's quarters. The duo open a plant in Darjeeling and stay there with a servant by the name of Karuna (Raveena Tandon) who has a severe complex to break everything. Karuna falls in love with Raju's simple ways but her heart is broken when she finds out Raju is returning to Mumbai to get married. Raju also learns that the house he is staying in once belonged to Karuna's fathers, who had 10 lakhs stolen from him at a railway station one year ago in Mumbai which was money for Karuna's wedding. With this kind of perdicament, our hero must decide if he should choose the girl whom he truly loves or the girl who loves him unconditionally.

With this kind of script, one cannot expect too much from the main stars who all do a good job given the poor script. Debut director Manoj Agrawal should have spent more time developing the storyline and could have made a great film. Govinda, as usual, has given an excellent performance. Shilpa Shetty proves she can act and not be an ornament in the film, same for Raveena who has proven that she doesn't need to wear mini-skirts to make her presence felt on screen. The music is okay, with a few good numbers sung by Anand Raaj Anand himself. All in all, Pardesi Babu is good time-pass if you're looking for a nice, clean love-triangle film and of course if you like Govinda.