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Vaastav: The Reality (1999)
Vaastav:The Reality,Watch it for Sanjay Dutt ,he's simply superb in this one..
Vaastav is about Ragunath Namdev Shivalkhar aka Raghu Bhai(Sanjay Dutt),he lives in a lower middle class family in a Chawl of Mumbai,he's a brat and has no interest in studies whatsoever,and is always having fun with his best friend Dedhfutiya(Sanjay Narvekar)and other friends,because of his nature his parents(Father:Namdev Shivalkhar(Shivaji Satam) and Mother:Shanta(Reema Lagoo)) and brother Vijay Namdev Shivalkhar(Mohnish Behl) are always angry with him ,so on Raghu's insistence his father withdraws 40,000 from his provident fund and with that money Raghu opens a Pav Bhaaji stall, they run their shop smoothly,until one day 2 local goons mess with Dedhfutiya and beat him up,hence a fight starts and Raghu accidentally kills a goon who is the brother of a local Don Fracture Bandya(Jack Gaud).
Afraid and terrified Raghu and Dedhfutiya go absconding,Fracture Bandya goes crazy searching them and even takes the help of police to find them but it's of no use as Raghu and Dedhfutiya go hiding in the place of another Don 'Vitthal Kaanya'(Ashish Vidyarthi) with a help of an Sub Inspector friend Kishore Kadam(Deepak Tijori),Vitthal Kaanya was once the boss of 'Fracture Bandya',but is now losing his hold over the city due to increasing power of Fracture Baandya.Fracture Bandya comes to know that Raghu is hiding with Vitthal Kaanya,and meets Middle Man Mandvaali Baadshah 'Suleiman Bhai'(Paresh Rawal) asking Vithal Kaanya to pay a huge ransom amount to save Raghu's life, so a meeting is arranged in a restaurant with a promise that no guns will be bought,but Suleiman does not trusts Fracture Bandya and get's a gun attached under one of the restaurant's table.In the restaurant Raghu and Dedhfutiya meet Francture Bandya and his brother'Chota Fracture'(Ganesh Yadav), Fracture Bandya arranges for a gun from one of the waiters and is about to kill Raghuand Dedhfutiya when Raghu takes out the gun attached below the table and kills Fracture Bandya, however his brother escapes...
Raghu becomes the most powerful and feared and the richest don of Mumbai Underworld and starts working for Maharshtra Home Minister Babban Rao Kadam(Mohan Joshi),Raghu arranges for a job for his brother Vijay and also gets him married to Puja(Ekta Sohini)using his fear antics.Raghu becomes a smoker, an alcohol and cocaine addict and falls in love and marries a prostitute Sonia(Namrata Shirodkar) at a brothel owned by Lakshmi Akka(Himani Shivpuri).Soon Chota Fracture gets Vitthal Kaanya killed so Raghu and his gang kill Chota Fracture with his entire gang.Raghu also kills a group of hoodlums who eve tease Puja(Vijay's wife). Babban Rao Kadam behaves as if Raghu is his own son and even sends Raghu on a honeymoon with Sonia to Switzerland on his cost,Raghu does many killings on Babban's including a Muslim preacher which leads to riots.
Babban sends Raghu to threaten a Parsi person to empty a land,after Signing the required papers for emptying the land the Parsi starts abusing Raghu and Babban so Raghu loses his head and kills the Parsi, This incident gets a lot of media publicity ,so due to increasing pressure by media on his links with the underworld Babban shows his true color and gives an encounter order for Raghu, Dedhfutiya and all Raghu's gang members,which leads to encounter of Dedhfutiya and all the Raghu's gang members by the police..
So Raghu asks Suleimaan to arrange a secret meeting with Babban where he will surrender to police but he comes and kills Babban but unfortunately Suleiman also gets killed in the meeting ,Raghu goes running to his secret house in Alibaug where he has hidden his family,fed up with his life and fear of police encounter he tells his mother to please kill him which she obliges to do..
The biggest strength of the movie is Sanjay Dutt who gives a performance of his life ,to put in mild words he gives one of the best performances in Bollywood history and deservedly won Filmfare best actor for it,even making the legendary actor Dilip Kumar to say that if there is a performance in Bollywood he won't be able to do it would be Sanjay Dutt's in Vaastav,all other performances are good too and specially of Reema Lagoo as Raghu's mother and Sanjay Narvekar as Dedhfutiya.
The direction is excellent by Mahesh Manjrekar(his debut as director),The dialogues are very powerful throughout the movie with'PACHCHAS TOLA' dialogue and climax dialogues being outright brilliant,the cinematography by Vijay Arora is very good adding to the intense, powerful and realistic feel of the movie,the background score by Sandeep Chowta is perfectly apt for the movie, the music by Jatin-Lalit is good too and suits the movie.
At the box office the film was only a moderate success but surely deserved more,although the film won many awards and has very high critical acclaim, Vaastav was followed by Haathyar as a sequel in which Raghu's son grows up to be a don played by Sanjay Dutt again,but was not as good.
VAASTAV IS A MATERPIECE AND STRONGLY RECOMMENDED,AMONG THE BEST GANGSTER MOVIES EVER MADE IN BOLLYWOOD..
RATING-9/10
Company (2002)
Brilliantly directed, one of the best Bollywood gangster movie..
Ram Gopal Varma is a man of extremes because he can sometimes make quite bad movies, as well as come up with masterpieces like Satya,Rangeela,Sarkar,Company etc..
Company is probably the best directed RGV movie along with Satya, the film gives an exact, detailed and working of Mumbai underworld,as well as showing the relationship b/w dons Malik(Ajay) and Chandu(Vivek) loosely based on the relationship of Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan and their rivalry.
The film highlights the economics behind running an Indian mafia organization. In the opening of the film, Ajay Devgan describes the modus operandi of underworld. He states "Despite anybody telling anything else, in this world everything is done for profit, so is this business. We don't pay taxes, neither do we keep accounts; For this work is done by inducing fear. Anybody can join us anytime, but can never resign. Whoever breaks our law, is broken by us. Here friendship, respect or honesty, the only real reason behind all these is same thing -- Profit". During murder / extortion scenes following, Ajay Devgan adds "profit happens -- like this, like this or like that".
The story revolves around a young man named Chandu (played by Vivek Oberoi) joining the world of crime in the Mumbai underworld to "make it big" someday. Gradually he learns tricks of the trade and increases the gang's earnings and profits. This leads to his affinity with Malik (played by Ajay Devgan) who is the leader of the gang.
The film features one cold blooded murder scene wherein Malik and Chandu kill Saeed and his brother Anis in the rear seat of the car on a chilling rainy day. Thereafter Malik goes on a bloody rampage killing all his opponents, so as to take the reins of underworld in his hands.
They include his rival gang leader and colleague under Aslam's umbrella Sharma, who was in a meeting with police inspector Rathod, also killed off. Inspector Rathod, who once tortured and abused Chandu in jail in early days, was also killed at Malik's permission.
However, both come at loggerheads during the execution of a contract killing. The contract was from a politician who tries to use Malik's gang to eliminate a front-runner, a contender for Home Minister's post.
The rift between Chandu and Malik widens due to various misunderstandings. The Commissioner of Police, Sreenivasan IPS (Mohanlal) makes use of the rift to bring the mafia under control. Chandu and Malik end up becoming bitter enemies. After Chandu's retaliation of the assassination of his life long friend of one of lieutenants Warsi, two factions of Mumbai's once most powerful gang 'Company' went to a full scale war.
Malik and Chandu killed as many members of each opponent gangs as possible. Sreenivasan, as the police chief of the city of murders due to the war, became criticized greatly, but he and his men knew this war ultimately is shortening the to do list of his department. Big number of button men and lieutenants from both gangs were being killed. The war results in an intense chase sequence shot in Kenya where Malik hires hit men to kill Chandu.
However Chandu survives, though he is injured severely. Sreenivasan convinces Chandu to come back to Mumbai and fight his war with Malik by helping the police bring the mafia under control.
The film reaches its climax when Chandu kills the politician (the mastermind of the contract killing) within the prison. At the same time, one of Chandu's aides named Koda Singh, who swore revenge to kill who went against his friend Chandu, shoots Malik point blank to death in Hong Kong.
This shows, Chandu and Malik came to a truce but Chandu never withdrew his order to Koda to kill Malik. It's not confirmed that whether Chandu has forgotten to withdraw his orders or deliberately kept that on. But, after the assassination Sreenivasan notified Chandu and Chandu became tremendously shocked at this news. So, possibly Chandu forgot to send a come back call to Koda.
Koda Singh was arrested by Hong Kong Police on that day. The film ends, showing Chandu spending the rest of his life in prison after being persuaded by the Police Commissioner to surrender.
Among the cast Ajay is great, Mohanlal is brilliant as usual, Vivek is excellent in this one, hard to believe this was his first movie, Manisha is good,Antara is alright for once,the rest of the cast is perfectly chosen and do their jobs efficiently.
The movie is gritty and intense, the background score by Sandeep Chowta suits the mood of the movie perfectly, music by Sandeep Chowta is excellent with some very good songs like "Khallas","Sab Ganda Hai","Tumse Kitna Pyaar Hai"...
This movie is among the best gangster movies ever made in Bollywood along with Satya,Vaastav,Parinda and Agneepath...
Company is definitely one of the best DIRECTED movies made in Bollywood.A Salute to RGV for this one.
Coolie (1983)
Watch it just for Amitabh, and you won't be disappointed..
well, we all know that Manmohan Desai's movies are completely devoid of logic but yet are entertaining and paisa wasool. Coolie is remembered for Amitabh's unfortunate accident which gave the movie a lot of publicity.
The movie is pretty entertaining,but would come after Amar Akbar Anthony,Naseeb,Suhaag and Parvarish among other Amitabh and Manmohan Desai movies.
The action and comedy scenes are good. Amitabh is excellent as usual, specially his introductory scene is awesome,Waheeda Rehman is pretty good,Kader Khan is alright,Rishi Kapoor does not has much to do,Rati Agnihotri looks beautiful and does a good job. Rest of the cast is just OK, but the guy who plays Amitabh's uncle ,a coolie himself who brings him up does a very good job.
Direction by Manmohan Desai is not at par with his previous work and there are certain parts in the second half of the movie where too many coincidences start taking place,and logic takes a complete backseat which is a bit much even for a Manmohan Desai film.
The music by Laxmikant Pyarelal is average and some songs come as a hindrance in the story narrative, with the song "saari duniya ka bojh" being the best one, which shows the problems faced by coolies in their day to day life
A DECENT AND ENJOYABLE ONE TIME WATCH mainly due to Amitabh's powerhouse performance as the macho coolie iqbal which is the primary reason that this movie became the biggest superhit of 1983.
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978)
An Excellent Movie With Excellent Songs..
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar is the second biggest blockbuster of Amitabh to date after Sholay and when you watch this movie you feel that it deserves too.Prakash Mehra was in top form in this movie he made some other top movies with Amitabh like Sharaabi,Lawaaris,Zanjeer,Namak Halal,Hera Pheri but Muqaddar Ka Sikandar was his best, in my opinion.
STORY:-A poor orphan boy is kept as a servant by a man named Ramnath in Shimla but the boy is outsed when he delovopes a friendship with Ramnath's daughter Kaamna,Ramnath shifts to Mumbai with Kaamna and the orphan reaches Mumbai searching for Kaamna .In Mumbai the orphan boy is adopted by a Muslim woman named Fatima who names the orphan Sikandar.Fatima works as a servant for Ramnath in Mumbai.On Kaamna's birthday Sikandar steals a favourite doll of Kaamna from a shop and as he is secretly placing the doll in Kaamna's room Ramnath catches and falsely accuses him of theft and beats him up and removes Fatima also from his house, even Kaamna believes that Sikandar is a thief. Fatima dies of a heart attack leaving the responsibility of her younger daughter Mehroo on Sikandar.After burying Fatima, Sikandar meets Fakir Darvesh Baba(Kader Khan)who advises him to embrace sadness in life as it is faithful and remains with us forever whereas happiness in momentary and hence not trustworthy and this wouls make him the master of his fate(Muqaddar Ka Sikandar) which Sikandar decides to follow.
Sikandar(Amitabh) grows up and becomes rich by giving information of smuggled goods to police and receiving cash awards, as a result smugglers become Sikandar's enemy. Sikandar has set up his business and looks after Mehroo,he still loves Kaamna but Kaamna does not.Ramnath is not rich any more and has become very old.Whenever Sikandar tries to confess his love to Kaamna she refuses as she regards him as a thief and a betrayer to her family.As a result Sikandar starts drinking and visting Zohra Beghum's(Rekha)Kotha regularly.Once Sikandar is saved by a bomb attack planned by his smuggler enemies by a young advocate Vishal(Vinod Khanna)so Sikandar befriends him and also arranges a also arranges a case for him.Zohra Beghum is falls in love with Sikandar but a crimnal Dilawar(Amjad Khan)loves Zohra and as soon he escapes from the jail and goes to Zohra's kotha searching for Sikandar as soon as she finds Sikandar a fight ensues between them in which Sikandar beats up Dilawar.Dilawar swears to kill Sikandar.
Kaamna discovers Sikandar's kindness to her family and goes to thank him. Encouraged, Sikandar tries to profess his love to Kaamna through a love letter. Because Sikandar himself is illiterate, Vishal transcribes the letter for him, but the plan backfires when Kaamna mistakes the letter as actually being from Vishal. Vishal, unaware that Kaamna is the girl Sikandar loves, falls in love with her, and the two begin to date. Sikandar, upon learning this, struggles with his emotions but decides he must sacrifice his love for the sake of his friendship with Vishal.
Sikandar's visits to Zora Begum have hampered his reputation. His sister(Mehroo's) marriage is in dire straits because of this habit. Vishal then visits Zora and offers to pay her for the rest of his life if she would let Sikandar go. Zora, upon learning the reason, promises Vishal that she would die before letting Sikandar visit her again. Sikandar arrives at Zora's in the evening and Zora refuses to let him in. Sikandar demands entry, and when Zora is unable to stop him she swallows a diamond and lets Sikandar in, only to die in his arms.
Dilawar in the meanwhile has formed an alliance with Sikandar's arch smuggler enemy JD(Ranjeet)and upon learning of Zora's death hatches a plan to destroy Sikandar and his family. Dilawar kindaps Kaamna but Sikandar sees them and follows him. JD and his henchmen kidnap Sikandar's sister Mehroo but Vishal follows them and rescues her.
Sikandar rescues Kaamna and sends her home while he battles Dilawar. In the final battle both Dilawar and Sikandar are mortally wounded, and Sikandar tells Dilawar that he never loved Zora. A dying Sikandar reaches the wedding of Kaamna and Vishal. Just as the wedding ceremony is completed, Sikandar collapses. His dying words inadvertently reveal his love for Kaamna, and Vishal sings him his favourite song "Life is going to betray you someday...Death is your true love as it'll take you along..." Sikandar's entire life flashes before him and he dies in Vishal's arms just as the song is completed.
Amitabh was brilliant as Sikandar which had a mix of his "angry young man" image as well as a that of a "doomed lover" watch his scenes when he beats up Amjad Khan or when he breaks into a Shayari during "Salaam-E-Ishq" song or his speech before "O Saathi Re" song or the climax scene he oozes confidence in every scene. Vinod Khanna was very good and efficient, Rekha was great as the the Mujra dancer Zohra who falls in love with Sikandar, Raakhee was decent, Amjad Khan was good as usual in the villain role,Kader Khan was excellent as the 'fakir', Nirupa Roy is perfect in her short role, Ranjeet fits his role..
The script by Vijay Kaul,Kader Khan and Laxmikant Sharma is great and now we come to the biggest strength of this movie:-
THE MUSIC by Kalyanji-Anandji is just excellent with superb songs like 'Rote Hue Aate Hain Sab','O Saathi Re','Wafa Jo Na Ki To','Dil To Hai Dil','Pyaar Zindagi Hai','Salaam E Ishq','Zindagi To Bewaafa Hai'.
A movie you can't afford to miss, because this movie is the complete package it has everything action, romance,comedy specially the emotional quotient of this movie is too strong, you might shed a couple of tears in the climax scene...
Adalat (1976)
An Underrated movie with awesome performance by Amitabh in a double role..
Directed by Narendra Bedi starring Amitabh Bachchan(double role),Waheeda Rehman,Neetu Singh,Kader Khan. the movie was a "semi hit" at the box office and Amitabh was nominated for FilmFare best actor for this film.
Adalat is a story of a brave village farmer Dharma(Thakur Dharam Chand) and his wife Radha(Waheeda Rehman)and the injustice done to Dharma and how he takes his revenge and becomes a Don ,Amitabh himself plays Dharma's son Raju educated in Britain with a Geeta Verma (Neetu Singh) as his love interest
Dharamchand, known as Dharma, an ameniable village farmer is thrilled when his wife, Radha, gives birth to a baby boy, who they decide to call Raju. Dharma heroically saves the lives of Ajit, Suresh, and Sujit, when they are being attacked by a tiger, and they graciously offer him a job in Bombay whenever he decides to visit. When the village experieces economic difficulty and drought, the family migrate to Bombay, where Ajit makes Dharma the manager of his warehouse in the city. Dharma is a success, until one day he is arrested by the police. His cries of innocence are ignored by the authorities and he is sentenced to 18 months in jail plus an additional six months for contempt of court. When he eventually returns home, everything has changed. His wife and Raju are near destitution; Laxmi has been raped by Sujit and has killed herself. Dharma decides to avenge her death and kills all three of them. He then joins forces with another gang, where he is rewarded for his loyalty and soon makes his way to the very top. He sends Raju for further education to Britain, and moves into a palatial home. Years later Raju returns home, and would like to marry Geeta Verma, who he met in Britain but is unable to meet his father's approval and comes into conflict. Unknown to Dharma, Ajit is still alive and has returned and it is time to avenge the past by trying to murder Dharma at any price.
Music by Kalyanji Anandji is decent with a couple of very good songs like "hum ka aisa waisa naa samjho" and "tumse door rehke"
Direction by Narendra Bedi is good,Dialogues are good,story is new and unpredictable. Amitabh gives a praiseworthy performance in the double role one of Dharma as a brave villager speaking in Awadhi who later becomes a Don and other of Dharma's son Raju a modern young guy educated in Britain. He shows an excellent range considering how diverse both the roles he plays are , this movie shows his talent as an actor to the fullest, Waheeda Rehman is natural, Neetu Singh adds glamour,Kader Khan is good as the honest cop, Anwar Hussain is alright as the villain.
Watch this movie for Amitabh...he's too good in this one..
Don (2006)
Just an average fare..one time watch..no way near original version
First of all,I have never liked remakes and feel they should never be made but when this movie's promo came..i thought that this would be interesting to watch,but some days prior to release i watched the original don and was absolutely mesmerized by Amitabh's performance in the movie which gave him the Filmfare best actor award.
Of course,the best thing about original version was it's unpredictability as we never knew what is going to happen, that's why i think that a suspense movie like don should not be remade. in the new version we know everything that will unfold except a couple of twists with one in the climax, which makes the movie boring, to be honest.
After 2 good movies Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya, Don is the weakest attempt of Farhan Akhtar,the music and background score by Shankar Ehsaan Loy is good though just like the original version.
Now for performances, Shahrukh is OK as don but sucks as Vijay, maybe he just can't relate to Vijay's character which probably Amitabh easily did being a Chora Ganga Kinaare Waala himself(pun intended) as he's from Allahabad, even in don's role Shahrukh blatantly overacts in some scenes to be honest, to be straightforward he's incomparable to Amitabh in the original..no offence for Shahrukh fans but he was way better in movies like Chak De India,Swades,Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi,My Name Is Khan, DDLJ, Baazigar, Darr.. Priyanka is good though, Arjun is OK,Boman is OK but overacts in the climax,Om Puri is wasted as he has no role!!, Isha Koppikar's got nothing to do..
While the original don unfolded at a feverish pace with excellent acting and dialogues by Amitabh, it was a taut thriller hence keeping everyone glued to their seats throughout, this one is slow and boring most of the time, and the copied dialogues from original don is a bad idea. But the new movie does have a different style, the action scenes are OK.
At box office this movie was a moderate success not like the original don which was a Superhit,this movie was a moderate success also due to Sharukh's popularity overseas while this movie was a below average fare in India but a Superhit overseas..making it a moderate success overall, and also the factor that many people watched it to see how Shahrukh's steps into Amitabh's shoes.
Watch it if you are a die hard Shahrukh fan or like style over substance, but if you've seen original don you can clearly feel how much better the original was..
Omkara (2006)
Omkara..a fitting tribute to Shakespeare's Othello...
In Bollywood,there are very few filmmakers who are ready to try something different mainly due to the fear of commercial failure as well as lack of creative ideas, but Vishal Bhardwaj is certainly not one of them, in his Omkara inspired by Shakespeare's Othello he makes a film which can be a lesson to other filmmakers on how to make a excellent film and how to portray intensity and true human feelings on screen.
The film's direction is marvellous and the screenplay as well as the background score and music by Vishal Bhardwaj himself makes the film a treat to watch.All the songs of the movie are brilliant.
Among the cast, Ajay plays the role of Omkara, the political goon(Bahubali)who works for Tiwari Bhiasaab(Naseeruddin Shah) who is the ruling MP from the district, Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi (Saif Ali Khan) and Keshav 'Kesu Firangi' Upadhyay (Vivek Oberoi) are the closest lieutenants of Omkara.
The movie starts with Langda Tyagi hijacking a Baraat and sending Rajju (Deepak Dobriyal), the bridegroom to try and stop Omkara from abducting the bride, Dolly Mishra (Kareena Kapoor). Rajju fails and the wedding never takes place.
Dolly's father Advocate Ragunath Mishra (Kamal Tiwari), mostly referred in the movie as "vakeel saab" (lawyer sir), is furious and confronts Omi. He puts a gun to Omi's head and demands the return of his daughter. Bhaisaab intervenes and resolves the conflict by mentioning the current political conditions and prevents bloodshed. Still unconvinced, Vakeel saab grieves to Bhaisaab the next day. To bring a final solution to this issue, Dolly is made to appear in front of her father and clarify that she eloped with Omi rather than being abducted forcefully. She also tells the events of how she fell in love with Omkara. The father leaves feeling betrayed and ashamed.
After some crafty political arm-twisting, involving a MMS sex scandal, Omkara eliminates a powerful electoral rival. Bhaisaab is elected for Parliament and Omkara is promoted from "bahubali" to the candidate for the upcoming state elections. Omkara appoints Kesu over Langda as his successor once he enters politics himself. Langda, disappointed with Omkara's poor judgment and jealous of Kesu, his younger, less-experienced, superior; hatches a plot to revenge both his offenders. He first causes a violent brawl between Kesu and Rajju (Deepak Dobriyal), Dolly's original suitor by taking advantage of Kesu's low threshold for alcohol. Such irresponsible behaviour of Kesu infuriates Omi, who now starts becoming unsure about his own decision.
On one hand, playing the role of a concerned friend Langda convinces Kesu to appeal to Dolly, Omi's lover and bride-to-be to mollify Omi. On the other he starts to disrepute Dolly by implicating Kesu's visits to ask Dolly for her help as meetings in an illicit love affair between the two. A kamarbandh, a piece of traditional jewellery worn around the waist, carelessly dropped by Dolly and stolen by Langda's wife Indu (Konkona Sen Sharma), which eventually reaches Billo Chamanbahar (Bipasha Basu) as a gift from Kesu, plays an important part in the plot, as evidence of Dolly's infidelity.
By the time of the climax, the night of their wedding, Omi is convinced that Dolly and Kesu have been having an affair behind his back. In utter rage, he smothers his new wife to death. Langda shoots Kesu with a silent approval from Omi. Kesu doesn't die but gets hit with a bullet on his arm. Hearing gunshots and in shock Indu enters the room where Omi is sitting next to Dolly's corpse in remorse. Indu notices the kamarbandh and mentions stealing it, they both understand the fatal misunderstanding and Langda as its root cause.
In retribution, Indu slashes Langda's throat and Omi commits suicide. The movie closes with Omi lying dead of the floor and Dolly's dead body swinging above his, while Kesu is looking on.
Among the cast, Saif is the best as the villain Langda Tyagi ,this role is completely different from lover boy's role that he has done in the past, he plays a rustic goon here and gets into the skin of the character, he portrays a lot of intensity through his eyes and leaves everyone spellbound with his devilish performance, Ajay does a good job and suits the role completely, Kareena is decent, Konkana is absolutely natural, Vivek is alright ,Naseeruddin Shah is good as usual.
The movie won seven Filmfare awards with Saif winning Filmfare award for best villain.