Bollywood superstar Abishek Bachchan has the title role of the romantic adventure epic "Raavan," but the movie belongs to his exquisite real-life wife Aishwarya Rai. A blue-eyed beauty who resembles Myrna Loy, Rai's Ragini is the wife of Dev (Chiyaan Vikram), a virile police inspector assigned to bring down the wild-eyed Raavan, a bandit holed up with his men in a jungle fortress. Before Dev can plan his maneuvers, Raavan kidnaps Ragini. It takes a couple of hours to learn whether Beauty can tame Beast.
Director Mani Ratnam and his colleagues give Bollywood fans full value. Ratnam's pace is steadfastly brisk, and his film is replete with dizzying camerawork, myriad complications, violent mayhem, broad humor, usual musical interludes, a cliffhanging climactic confrontation and a finish that strikes a note of poignancy. There's even a feminist undercurrent: Ragini, played with poise and fortitude by Rai, draws sympathy while Dev emerges as flawed as Raavan is crazed. "Raavan" is overlong and drawn out by Hollywood standards, but is of typical running time for Bollywood. In any event, its cast and crew are to be congratulated for their unflagging stamina and energy.
Kevin Thomas
"Raavan." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes. At the Culver Plaza, 9919 Washington Blvd., Culver City, (310) 836-5516.
The great strength of Kate David and David Heilbroner's "Stonewall Uprising" is its rich context. Long before the filmmakers arrive at the night of June 28, 1969, that was to transform forever the way gay people looked at themselves and their lives, they make chillingly clear how oppressive and downright dangerous life was for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people at that time.
Bohemian Greenwich Village, though, had a tradition of tolerance for gays, and by the '60s the gay community had become increasingly visible. In 1969, New York Mayor John Lindsay was running for re-election and newspapers announced that Times Square and Greenwich Village, frequented by "weird" people, were to be "cleaned up." Raids on the Village's Mafia-run gay bars increased. On Christopher Street, the heart of the gay community, stood the seedy but popular Stonewall Inn, which drew a highly eclectic gay crowd. About a half a dozen cops entered the Stonewall with the intent to clear the place and close it down quickly. But as one eyewitness says, a "tough lesbian" resisted arrest, and that sparked a battle, soon drawing thousands of combative supporters in the street while police and customers were barricaded inside the bar. "It was the first time gay people fought back," says one Stonewall veteran.
A moment had come that had to be seized, which in turn gave birth to the gay rights movement. On June 28, 1970, New York held its first gay parade, and as one of its participants remarks, "Stonewall lives on" in all the gay parades ever since.
Kevin Thomas
"Stonewall Uprising." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes. At the Nuart in West L.A. through Thursday.
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