Amal

2007
7.5| 1h41m| en
Details

Autorickshaw driver Amal is content with the small, but vital, role he serves - driving customers around New Delhi as quickly and safely as possible. But his sense of duty is tested by an eccentric, aging billionaire, who, moved by Amal's humility, bequeaths him his entire estate before passing away. With only one month to discover and claim the inheritance, Amal's struggles with duty and wealth are threatened by all those around him - from a young injured beggar girl and a lovely store merchant, to the danger of the old man's upper-caste friends and siblings, all seeking to claim their share of the riches.

Director

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Poor Man's Productions

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Reviews

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
sudip-28-697695 Fate of a billionaire and that of a poor rickshaw driver both in love of humanity tries to meet and help each other in their bid to keep humanity alive. But destiny has some other plans which results in them lost in translation i.e. a letter that Amal can't read.
murielb I saw this film during an Air Canada flight (thanks to their private screens for every seat). My favorite films are always the ones without special effects. Simple story and great actors make a good film and Amal is very very good for all who appreciate this type of movie. I saw a short version and the long one which was much better since it lets you know more about Amal, the main character. Thank you for the magical moment when the old man sings the poetic song in the restaurant, very moving. It almost goes too far preaching about the goodness of being poor, and the greed of the rich. But the cinematography, the music and the location help me enjoy every minute of it.
yonsei73 When I saw Amal, I noticed that some people found the ending disappointing. I knew exactly why this happened: The majority of the world thinks that money and happiness are basically equivalent. I can see why it has a 6.1/10 user rating because there are those who love it and those who hate it.Then, I read this: "It was was such a disturbing twist to me, because of how I had grown up," Richie Mehta said, referring to his self-described middle-class background growing up west of Toronto. "What I had been taught what success was … this story was a slap in the face to that." ~From http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tiff/story/2007/09/10/tiff-amal-mehta.html
Howard Schumann Following the legacy of his deceased father, Amal Kumar (Rupinder Nagra) turned down a higher paying job at the post office to drive an auto-rickshaw on the streets of Dehli, India. Maneuvering daily through crowded streets daily to barely eke out a living, Amal is good natured to a fault, refusing to accept tips and always charging the meter rate. Shot on location in India by a Canadian and Indian crew, Richie Mehta's low-budget feature Amal is a charming O'Henry-like tale about class, wealth, and family in India. It is a very worthy first effort that captures the frenetic street life of the city of Dehli and provides a sense of immediacy in the style of Michael Winterbottom, but without the hand-held camera cliché.When Amal refuses to accept a tip and offers cough drops to a gruff old man dressed in rags, G.K. Jayaram (Raseeruddin Shah), the man is convinced he has finally found a good man, a man of principle. When the old man dies suddenly, his family discovers that he has done something no one expected. Though we hear G.K. beautifully singing a traditional song in a café, we are still astonished when the eccentric old man turns out to be a man of means who leaves his fortune to Amal, though the rickshaw driver remains totally unaware of these events. The story concerns how the old man's request is handled by his business partner Suresh (Roshan Seth), his lawyer Sapna Agarwal (Seema Biswas), and his scheming sons Harish (Siddhant Beh) and Vivek (Vik Sahay) who simply want what they feel is owed to them.G.K.'s will contains instructions that his assets will remain locked for thirty days until Amal can be found and the dead man's attorney sets out to locate Amal, not an easy attack in a city with thousands of Amals. Then again, it might be in his attorney's best interests not to find him: if Amal doesn't show up within thirty days, G.K.'s fortune will revert to his sons, with whom Suresh has a secret deal. A few subplots spice up the intrigue over the will but serve only to reinforce the film's underlying message.Amal's develops a romantic interest in Pooja Seth (Koel Purie), a passenger he picks up every day and becomes devoted to the health of a young girl who is run over and injured by his rickshaw while begging in the streets,. Filmed in English and Hindi, Amal was inspired by a real-life experience and story idea by his brother, Shaun Mehta. Together they turned it into a short and then expanded it into a full-length feature in time for the Toronto Film Festival in 2007. While its theme of happiness trumping wealth has been done many times, Amal feels original and an impressive performance from Toronto actor Nagra holds the film together.

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