Ok so being the first one to write a review is a responsibility
I was in school when this movie had released. I had a faint remembrance of this movie, since there were some controversies during it's release since the look of Paresh Rawal (as many thought) was inspired by politician Laloo Yadav. If I remember correctly, the movie didn't release in Bihar but our cable operator was a fan, and used to telecast it often where I had seen in bits and pieces. Although the movie tanked at the box office. When I came across this on Youtube, it was like finding a lost childhood movie. Well maybe not literally, but in some senses and hence I decided to click and watch the complete movie.
Anyhow now to user review
Regarding the plot, I will update that too in plot section so don't want to repeat it here. In the nutshell it seems the makers wanted to do a remake of iconic movie Namak Haram.
Won't call the movie to be very bad, the plot line (although copied) was actually good. What missed here was the consistency and to some extent execution.
The movie starts with Villian Paresh Rawal and his henchmen burning and destroying a Basti in Mumbai (sorry Bombay) slums. Nasir Uddin Shah who was a star police officer is brought to investigate this crime and he immediately decodes that he is the culprit because he finds some accessory of one of his henchmen there.
This in itself was so lame, like did he know about what each of the henchmen owned to deduce that it belonged to him, and again is that even a permissible proof in court of law? Anyhow I decided to excuse since it was 90s movie when logic was unheard of, but my issue is that this entire demolition part had no further reference in the movie. Yes you heard it right, they spent good 20 minutes on establishing the reason and way this Basti could be got rid off by Paresh Rawal &Team and Nasiruddin's vow to get justice for these poor people to completely forget it ever happened.
Later they showed a journalist writing against Paresh Rawal, and latter got her house ransacked. Her brother reaches to Nasiruddin and agrees to testify, and can you guess what Nasiruddin did? Actually took him to Paresh Rawal to threaten him that now he has a witness so days of Paresh Rawal are limited (in the midst of night without even having got his statement recorded) and hence Paresh gets him killed that night itself. 90s movie lacked logic. OK agreed. 👍 But again the reporter and her brother's death was completely forgotten to be never mentioned again. This took nearly 10 minutes. So practically in first 1.2 hours(half the movie) we had 30 minutes spent on actions which had no connection to further stories and weren't even given a conclusion.
These tracks seemed such a waste...
Anyhow now coming to the main plot, for their credit, the friendship between Suraj(Manek Bedi) and Karan (Inder Kumar) was properly shown. They did establish the fact that Karan is basically completely indebted to Suraj and his father for his overall existence and is ready to do anything that pleases/protects them. The characterization of Suraj including importance of Karan in his life, his "I can do what I want" attitude, vengeful nature and biggest of all "non acceptance of punishment if not at fault" were all properly built up for the main story to occur. His enmity with Nasir's character was also well explained.
But post that it seems they were left with very limited time to actually execute the story. It seemed completely rushed. The realization of Karan that he was wrong all along was way too abrupt.(Unlike in Namak Haram, when Rajesh Khanna witnesses both the love and miseries of workers), here they actually showed Karan mocking the love imparted onto him by Nasir and his wife only to remember at the end on what love and care was imparted onto him by people he betrayed.
Aside the scene of Karan's transformation wasn't convincing at all, he felt guilty on seeing policemen being killed by Paresh Rawal while he was helping the latter escape. The thing is he gave his gun to Rawal hinting him to escape, what else if not murdering the policemen near was he expecting the latter to do that the incident transformed him? This was probably the most irrational transformation reason. If nothing else, they could have showed him the family of deceased policemen/the previous reporter I mentioned and then understood the Long lasting effect of one time activities they do and forget. But no luck. Again the post transformation actions were completely missing. He just collected some papers from here and there (all in one room) and apparently made a file against Paresh Rawal having details of all his illegal activities, which now the latter needed in any cost. If getting evidence was so easy why did the policemen wait for some witness (and get him killed) rather than arresting basis these existent events.
That was the major flaw here, they spent too much time on building the plot and were left with limited time to actually execute it. Instead of spending 30 minutes on things which had no use in movie they could have utilized to show actually what all Karan did to help Suraj and his father while working in police as their spy and what he did to redeem himself after realization.
I think the makers thought that Paresh Rawal's look as a real life politician was the USP of the movie and thought it would suffice. They just wanted the USP to have maximum screenspace and therefore inserted scenes with literally no usage. Or else it could be Paresh Rawal/ Nasiruddin Shah not agreeing to have smaller/ less important roles than newcomers so makers had to deliberately give the two veterans extra screen time. Either case that made entire screenplay look very lose.
Acting wise both Paresh Rawal and Nasiruddin Shah were good especially Paresh sir emotes the cunningness through his eyes. Theit hate chemistry also had a spark and was enjoyable to watch.
Manek Bedi had the most meaty role on paper, but execution wise he kept the same angered look onto his face throughout. However he was good in scenes he actually was supposed to be angry
Inder Kumar had relatively smaller role and his voice was dubbed by a dubbing artist which I think could have been because it was around the time of making of this movie that he got into an accident and was bed ridden. But was ok in his parts.
Among the leading ladies only Ayesh Julka had some role in the movie/story, others were hust kept so that heroes could romance them, Ayesha played her part well. Not much to add for others
Songs were composed by Rajesh Roshan and was really good, especially the "Bahut door jaane ko song" was one you can hear in loop
Overall an average movie which had a potential to be better.
I was in school when this movie had released. I had a faint remembrance of this movie, since there were some controversies during it's release since the look of Paresh Rawal (as many thought) was inspired by politician Laloo Yadav. If I remember correctly, the movie didn't release in Bihar but our cable operator was a fan, and used to telecast it often where I had seen in bits and pieces. Although the movie tanked at the box office. When I came across this on Youtube, it was like finding a lost childhood movie. Well maybe not literally, but in some senses and hence I decided to click and watch the complete movie.
Anyhow now to user review
Regarding the plot, I will update that too in plot section so don't want to repeat it here. In the nutshell it seems the makers wanted to do a remake of iconic movie Namak Haram.
Won't call the movie to be very bad, the plot line (although copied) was actually good. What missed here was the consistency and to some extent execution.
The movie starts with Villian Paresh Rawal and his henchmen burning and destroying a Basti in Mumbai (sorry Bombay) slums. Nasir Uddin Shah who was a star police officer is brought to investigate this crime and he immediately decodes that he is the culprit because he finds some accessory of one of his henchmen there.
This in itself was so lame, like did he know about what each of the henchmen owned to deduce that it belonged to him, and again is that even a permissible proof in court of law? Anyhow I decided to excuse since it was 90s movie when logic was unheard of, but my issue is that this entire demolition part had no further reference in the movie. Yes you heard it right, they spent good 20 minutes on establishing the reason and way this Basti could be got rid off by Paresh Rawal &Team and Nasiruddin's vow to get justice for these poor people to completely forget it ever happened.
Later they showed a journalist writing against Paresh Rawal, and latter got her house ransacked. Her brother reaches to Nasiruddin and agrees to testify, and can you guess what Nasiruddin did? Actually took him to Paresh Rawal to threaten him that now he has a witness so days of Paresh Rawal are limited (in the midst of night without even having got his statement recorded) and hence Paresh gets him killed that night itself. 90s movie lacked logic. OK agreed. 👍 But again the reporter and her brother's death was completely forgotten to be never mentioned again. This took nearly 10 minutes. So practically in first 1.2 hours(half the movie) we had 30 minutes spent on actions which had no connection to further stories and weren't even given a conclusion.
These tracks seemed such a waste...
Anyhow now coming to the main plot, for their credit, the friendship between Suraj(Manek Bedi) and Karan (Inder Kumar) was properly shown. They did establish the fact that Karan is basically completely indebted to Suraj and his father for his overall existence and is ready to do anything that pleases/protects them. The characterization of Suraj including importance of Karan in his life, his "I can do what I want" attitude, vengeful nature and biggest of all "non acceptance of punishment if not at fault" were all properly built up for the main story to occur. His enmity with Nasir's character was also well explained.
But post that it seems they were left with very limited time to actually execute the story. It seemed completely rushed. The realization of Karan that he was wrong all along was way too abrupt.(Unlike in Namak Haram, when Rajesh Khanna witnesses both the love and miseries of workers), here they actually showed Karan mocking the love imparted onto him by Nasir and his wife only to remember at the end on what love and care was imparted onto him by people he betrayed.
Aside the scene of Karan's transformation wasn't convincing at all, he felt guilty on seeing policemen being killed by Paresh Rawal while he was helping the latter escape. The thing is he gave his gun to Rawal hinting him to escape, what else if not murdering the policemen near was he expecting the latter to do that the incident transformed him? This was probably the most irrational transformation reason. If nothing else, they could have showed him the family of deceased policemen/the previous reporter I mentioned and then understood the Long lasting effect of one time activities they do and forget. But no luck. Again the post transformation actions were completely missing. He just collected some papers from here and there (all in one room) and apparently made a file against Paresh Rawal having details of all his illegal activities, which now the latter needed in any cost. If getting evidence was so easy why did the policemen wait for some witness (and get him killed) rather than arresting basis these existent events.
That was the major flaw here, they spent too much time on building the plot and were left with limited time to actually execute it. Instead of spending 30 minutes on things which had no use in movie they could have utilized to show actually what all Karan did to help Suraj and his father while working in police as their spy and what he did to redeem himself after realization.
I think the makers thought that Paresh Rawal's look as a real life politician was the USP of the movie and thought it would suffice. They just wanted the USP to have maximum screenspace and therefore inserted scenes with literally no usage. Or else it could be Paresh Rawal/ Nasiruddin Shah not agreeing to have smaller/ less important roles than newcomers so makers had to deliberately give the two veterans extra screen time. Either case that made entire screenplay look very lose.
Acting wise both Paresh Rawal and Nasiruddin Shah were good especially Paresh sir emotes the cunningness through his eyes. Theit hate chemistry also had a spark and was enjoyable to watch.
Manek Bedi had the most meaty role on paper, but execution wise he kept the same angered look onto his face throughout. However he was good in scenes he actually was supposed to be angry
Inder Kumar had relatively smaller role and his voice was dubbed by a dubbing artist which I think could have been because it was around the time of making of this movie that he got into an accident and was bed ridden. But was ok in his parts.
Among the leading ladies only Ayesh Julka had some role in the movie/story, others were hust kept so that heroes could romance them, Ayesha played her part well. Not much to add for others
Songs were composed by Rajesh Roshan and was really good, especially the "Bahut door jaane ko song" was one you can hear in loop
Overall an average movie which had a potential to be better.
