Formula Movies

Oh how formula movies of the 90's are dearly missed by everyone!

What is a formula movie?

In India, in an industry called Bollywood before the name Bollywood got popular, there were action movies made. Like all matter is governed by laws of physics, all action movies were governed by the laws of "formula movies".

Watching a formula movie is like watching WWE, you know its all rigged.. you know every dialogue before its spoken.. you know every move of the villain, hero and heroine. But you still sit and watch it! 

If you consider your self too good for the 90's Hindi action movies.. then you should just have some mother's milk f*%ker!

The rules of the formula movies fell in to many categories.

Character based rules:

Hero's Sister 

This is a very central character in the movie. It is this character that will shape the latter half of the movie. (Hero's sister may or may not be his blood relative, pls refer to the point number 1 of this post)

There will usually be an annoying song involving how gullible she is and how elder brotherly the hero is.

If you look closely at the forehead of this character, you will see the word 'DEATH' written on it. Yes, this character will die at the hands of the villain or villain's henchmen. The usual ways of death include:

• Raped by villain or the henchmen OR the villain and the henchmen... she then chooses to stab herself. It is only after this will the hero make his appearance... so that she can ask him 'how she looks on a scale of 1 to 10 with that trickle of blood from her mouth'.

• A variation of the above is that the villain or the henchmen close in for the rape, and the lady smartly finds a giant-ass dagger lying around. Then she gives them her 2-step warning... "don't come any further.."  "don't come any further..". Once she's done with this.. she then rips her guts out with the dagger. (Somehow she decides that trying for the villain's guts is of lower priority). Once this is done.. the villains quickly get away and the hero makes his entry as in the case above.

• She could be the sole inhabitant of the house which is rigged with a bomb by the dastardly villains. Just as the hero screams out her name, she will be sent into a zillion pieces. (at that time she's most probably humming a pleasant, soothing tune)

• Thrown off the roof of a tall building, or jumps off.. which ever comes first.

In any case, her death will pave the storyline of the remaining movie.. which is : Find villain and henchmen and destroy them with bare fists.

Villain

This is the second most important character in the movie. If the hero doesn't have a sister, then this is the most important. The villain usually is a rich character because he's a super mob boss, or a major smuggler or weapons dealer or woman trader or illegal land seller... usually he's all off the above. He's probably the best dressed guy in the movie. He will have an elaborate house with plenty of henchmen living with him (in the hall). The following characters could be the villain:

• stand alone mob boss who is not related to the hero or heroine other than the fact that he's killed the hero's or heroine's sister / mother / father or all of them while laughing and saying yo mama jokes. He could have done this in the recent past or may have done the killing at a time when the hero or heroine was a kid.

• the heroine's father stands the greatest opportunity to be a villain, its never the hero's father. (It is possible that the villain can turn out to be the hero's father in the end - like star wars, but otherwise the declared father of the hero is never the villain). The heroine's father on the other hand can be either the main villain or a team lead to the henchmen. This character will surely die and at the moment of death, the heroine will care less for her father than Donald duck cares about wearing pants.

• the minister. This character is an accurate description of how a minister would act in front of a mirror if no one were looking at him.

The end of the movie will always see the villain beaten to near death by the hero's fists. To understand why 'near death' you'll need to read on.

Henchmen

These are a constant in all the movies .. not just the characters, the actors as well. They have the same sinister laugh in all pre-rape sequences - the same noise you'll hear when you kick a horse in its nuts and play the resultant sound in slow motion. They are also dressed in the same clothes.. through the 90s you can actually see the color of their clothes fading. Their moment of fame in the movie is when they fall off a tower or through a wall of glass while performing a triple spin, double flip slam to the concrete floor. Most of their necks and backs will be broken by the hero.

Lonesome Friend

There are always single characters in a movie (as in guy without a chick or vice versa). They could be single right from the start of the movie or could have been made single coz their better half was driven over by a truck, usually driven by villain. This character also has DEATH on his/her forehead but there is a catch. If the better half was killed in the movie, then the character will last till the end but will be finished off somewhere during or before the climax. If the character is a single, over-jovial character, then you can see a well deserved colorful death by the mid of the movie.

Heroine

This is the main chick of the movie. Though she might be initially introduced with a bunch of girls, they will be erased from existence once the heroine makes her first full sentence. The heroine always opens her innings in the movie by having petty fights with the hero. Her first dialogues usually involve the words "scoundrel" .. "idiot (mostly pronounced eej-iot)". All this will then be quickly replaced by "how she sees the studly hero in the otherwise apparently rural, stinky, uneducated, uncouth roadside person". The heroine is good for one almost-rape sequence, one kidnap and one climax sexy song at the villains den.

Oh yeah.. and at some points in the movie, the heroine will get slapped for something or the other. (by the mother, villain, pet dog etc)

Heroine's Friends

These are girls who are picked up from railway stations and pavements. They are then given clothes and a hair-do. Their faces are left unwashed coz this helps boost the quality of the heroine's looks in comparison. They are given key lines in conversations like "Hehehehe" or "Hi friends" or "Hehehehe".

Police

The police is there to give the reality feel to the reel. They always arrest the wrong guy, stay asleep through the entire movie's happenings and don't have any real guns. The fitting of their uniforms makes you wonder how they can run or sit without spitting their balls out from all the pressure.

Bad Police

There is always a bad cop all the way on top, powerful and fully medal-ed.. who visits the villain's house to fall on his feet now and then and for some free biscuits. You can hear this man call himself a "faithful dog" many a times in the movie.

Hero

This is the most boring character of the movie. His actions are controlled buy all of the other characters. The Sister and Lonesome Friend give him his story line, the Heroine gives him the songs, erection and direction to the villain's house, the Police to run from and Villain to beat up.

Situation based rules:

Death of the villain

The hero will never beat the villain up and follow through with a kill. Nope, he will always spare him and make sure the villain lies next to a gun, bazooka, knife, nunchucks, dildo, tank etc. Once the hero turns his head the villain then picks up the weapon of choice and attacks the unsuspecting hero. This is a fine moment in the film to get rid of extra characters like the hero's mother, Lonesome Friend, etc. Any of the said characters will intercept the attack of the villain on the hero and roll over and die. Its after this moment that the villain will be killed.

Rich Dad Poor Dad

There is a constant rule of opposites. Either the hero's dad is rich and the chick's is poor or vice versa. Both can't be poor and both most definitely can't be rich. And invariably the girl is rich coz that's the only way you can dress her up and give her a big intro in slow-motion (if the girl does happen to be poor, then this intro scene would be a dream sequence). The gap between the rich and the poor is also fixed. The rich heroine is usually gifted a restaurant every month by her dad and she eats every recipe just once in her life. The poor hero's dad would usually read out loud a recipe book to the family as their dinner.

That just about covers the rules of the "Formula Movies".

A variation of these formula movies were the super-big-budget-action films. This would involve three heroes, three heroines, lots of singles, lots of villains and a finale climax song which would then explode into a massive one for all fist fight brawl. In spite of all the commotion and noise created by the brawl, the cops still wouldn't show until they are told - "dudes, you might wanna show up now, the next scene in the movie are the credits!".

- humble me

Brother-like

Let's start with a simple question .. What the F#&K?

Rakhi the (sacred) thread is tied by a girl on to the wrists of a boy who happens to be her brother (relative) .. or bother-like.

Brother-like:

This one happens to be one of the biggest loop-holes exposed and reused in the history of this planet.

The brother-like situation can fall under three broad categories:

1) A guy who's probably watched the girl grow up and has been helpful to the family to which the girl belongs. The kind of shit that Bollywood movies would show you. The typical "You're not my brother, but if I ever had one, even he wouldn't have done so much for me.. *weeeep* *snif* *sniffle*" (usually backed with a pathos played by Shehnai and everyone in the shot cries.. including the passing by milk man, spot boys and animals if any). Also in a couple of scenes, this sister character will be raped and butchered by the villain's right hand man. A non-Bollywood version of this brother-like situation would be really boring to discuss assuming they actually exist.

2) The shield-belt situation. Some girls have this primal need to set a target as high as Toyota for distributing Rakhi. The urge to be-sister every guy she sets her eyes on stems from her very womb. Boys find this festival to be the most disturbing day of each year. But not all boys. There are some equally deranged guys who believe that their sperm count is actually the number of sisters he must have in every district of the world. These boys and girls take the Indian pledge to a whole new meaning. (all Indians are our brothers and sisters?). Even Charlie Harper would remember more women he's been with than the number of sisters these brother-like guys would have. It becomes very complicated for a normal person to talk to this guy. Coz the demented moron would refer to all the girls he knows as "my sister".. and you wouldn't realise that he's talking about different girls. You would come out of the conversation thinking he's got one helluva sl*t for a sister who has slept with everyone in the world.

Anyways coming back to the girl...

Just like the Starship Enterprise has a force-field to shield itself from attacks, this situation arises from basic self defence. The subject girl spots the guy(s), she then with the help of her womb and loins assesses the boy's feelings. Most likely the guy might have breathed in air at this point of judgement. His loins would then be assessed as "one that must be contained". She will then whip out Rakhis at him so fast, ninjas will discontinue their usage of the ninja stars. The only difference between the Starship Enterprise and this girl is that the Enterprise actually needs a shield-belt. Many of these girls however fail to understand reflections and don't take into account that mirrors crack upon their gaze. So now, not only does the victim get a sister he doesn't want or need, he has to now deal with talking to her without loosing his eyesight or face in public.

These girls eventually stay unmarried because their weddings always stop half way. Before the man can pull out the mangalsutra to tie to her neck, she's already tied a Rakhi to his wrist (may be three). Even if they sedate her at the wedding and finish the ceremony without a Rakhi, the man would storm out of his 'first night' bedroom 'coz she's managed to tie a Rakhi to this balls (this usually causes a rash or an itch and is not pleasant for the guy... besides its not very sexy).

3) The incestation. This is a situation where the girl targets the male her chest is heaving for. But her upbringing has told her that wanting to get it on with him in a public phone booth while everyone stands and watches... is not appropriate. Her upbringing has also told her that you wouldn't want your brother to tie you to a table and take you from behind. So she remembers that magical thread of the Rakhi, fully convinced that tying this thread will cease the heaving. The boy who might have also been eyeing this girl would have just bought some chocolates and have worked out his entire speech of love... about how he will not only tie her to a table but also to a bed in a way which will make eagles blush. Just as he's about to make his move, the boy gets Rakhi-ed quicker than Mika Singh.

Oranges are pulpy fruits. They are naturally sweet and rich in vitamin C. You can squeeze the juice out of an orange using a juicer. 

The boy's brain from the point of the Rakhi feels pretty much like the orange. The girl is now convinced that her touching the boy will always be an honourable one... because its being governed by the sacred thread. This assumption usually turns out to be faulty when she touches the boys groin or licks ice cream off his face. Unable to cope with the mixed signals he's getting from the girl, he might decide to get a girlfriend. These girlfriends usually die under mysterious circumstances. The knife on her usually would read.. "he's mine bit*h!!".

So now the boy has to talk about everyday things with the girl, even including stuff about who the girl will marry and how many kids she will have. All this while her hands are still safely inside his pants. Finally when the boy cant take it anymore, he make his non-brother-like move on the girl. She will retaliate and make a scene as though the guy put his hands on her chest when in fact ... umm ok that's what he did do... The girl in anger will never ever talk to the guy ever again .. for a whole evening. But since he's brother-like, his sin will be forgiven. This loop will go on of course till the next year when its time to renew the bond of the Rakhi brother. The boy will kill himself or her or a random pomeranian... OR... the Rakhi would be used to tie the girl to the bed we talked about earlier and the two of them would be bonded together in holy incestimony.

- humble me