milind Reviews

Ardh Satya (1983)

HALF TRUTH IS MORE SCARIER THAN A LIE

[10/10 · 10 August 1999]

Govind Nihalani's directorial venture of Vijay Tendulkar's novel is brilliant. Om Puri plays an inspector Velankar who is forced to protect underworld don rama shetty, played brilliantly by sadahiv amrapurkar. This is Govind Nihlan's Most talked about movie. This is a very good and a classic film. Smita Patil plays the female lead opposite Om Puri. Naseeruddin Shah is brilliant in a cameo role. Although Sadashiv Amrapurkar has only 4 scenes in the movie he dominates the movie. This was Sadashiv Amrapurkars acting debut.Om Puri won a national award for this film for the best actor. Filmfare award winner for Best Film,Story,Supporting Actor(Sadashiv Amrapurkar).

Satya (1998)

CRIME NEVER PAYS

[10/10 · 5 July 1999]

Ramgopal Varma's hard hitting film on the Bombay Underworld. This movie is a classic from scene one to the climax. When you see this movie you will see history in the making. A hard hitting story of a person from nowhere , Satya. How he joins the underworld gang led by bhiku mhatre. This movie gives one message hard "CRIME NEVER PAYS".The scene where chander(snehal dabi) tells a joke, the scene where bhiku mhatre satya vidya and pyaari go for a dinner, the scene where yedda scares the music director romu sagar, the theatre scene, the climax, all these scenes will go down in the history of indian cinema as classic scenes. Urmila Matondkar as Satya's Girlfriend and Shefali Chaaya as bhiku mhatre's wife are excellent. J.D.Chakravarthi is brilliant as Satya. Manoj Bajpai gives an excellent and award winning performance as bhiku mhatre.He has managed to make the character of bhiku mhatre an immortal one like late amjad khan did for gabbar singh. Govind Namdeo is brilliant as Bhau. Co-script writer saurabh shukla is superb as kallu mama.It is so nice to see that first time writers saurabh shukla & anurag kashyap wrote such a brilliant script. A special mention must be made of the best cameo since rajesh khanna's cameo in andaz, by paresh raawal as commissioner of police.Satya was supposed to be made as a songless film but co-producer Bharat Shah felt that no distributor will buy the film and it will be too tense. Music director Vishal Bharadwaj and lyricist Gulzar were roped in to provide the music for this film and they did a brilliant work. The song "Sapne Main milti hai" and "kallu mamma" are too good. This is one of the very few brilliant movies of the 90's.

Holi (1984)

AAMIR KHAN'S FIRST MOVIE

[10/10 · 3 July 1999]

This was Aamir Khans first film. Although he is in a supporting cast he is as good as he is today. Holi is a comedy film based on a college campus on the day of holi. The college authorities do not give an holiday on this day and the college guys do all sort of mischevious activities for an holiday. Ketan Mehta co-wrote the screenplay along with Mahesh Elkunchwar. This film has no songs. Only one song is there but without music. In a small role Naseerudin Shah gives a very good performance. no where along the movie will a viewer feel bored. The ending is a good one. Watch out for a cameo by director Ketan Mehta playing holi during the last scene.

Maachis (1996)

CLASSIC

[10/10 · 29 June 1999]

This movie is gulzar's most personal film till date. It depicts the terrorism in punjab after Mrs.Indira Gandhi's assassination. Chandrachur singh gives a fantastic performance as a young man who is forced to join a terrorist group run by kulbushan kharbanda and om puri. Its hard to believe that this was the first film of chandrachur singh. Tabu gives a performance which changed her career. She got a national award for this film. Om puri, raj zutshi, jimmy shergill and kulbushan kharbanda give superb performances in the supporting cast. The screenplay/story/dialogues are written by gulzar. As with most gulzar's films , maachis too has story told in form of flashbacks. The script is very engrossing and does not let the viewer move till the end. This movie was banned in some places in punjab & kashmir. It was also send for a re-censor. A cinema hall strike in january 1997 and good publicity of songs meant that this became india's second biggest word-of-mouth hit. This record was only recently beaten by "Satya". The first one being "Sholay". Gulzar won filmfare award for Best story and Best dialogues. Gulzar also won a national award for the most popular film of the year. This is a must see movie. Like most of gulzar's film this is a CLASSIC.

Aandhi (1975)

The First Controversial Film

[10/10 · 15 June 1999]

Gulzar's most controversial film made. This film was released in 1975 during "The Emergency". Supposedly inspired from the life of India's late prime minister, Indira Gandhi. The film was stuck and also banned by political activists of Indira Gandhi's Party. Suchitra Sen gives a powerful performance as a housewife who marries a common hotel manager (Sanjeev Kumar)against her father's wish. She then joins Politics against her husbands wish. Sanjeev Kumar got the best actor award for this film. So did gulzar. The best scene in the movie and one of Indian Cinema's most touching scene is the scene picturised on the song " Tere Bina Zindagi se Koi..". This is a Classic movie. It is a must see. This movie was a hit when there

were 2 giant movies in competition.. "Deewar" and "Sholay".

Daud: Fun on the Run (1997)

A Good Comedy Movie

[7/10 · 14 June 1999]

Ramgopal Varma comes up with a different kind of comedy. Everyone is after a briefcase which contains something valuable. Its a fun on the run kind of movie. Sanjay Dutt and Urmila Matondkar give an excellent performance. The best performance comes from Paresh Rawal. This is Paresh's Best performance after Andaz Apna Apna and Sir. The Cinematography and Sound Recording are excellent. The dialogues are very good. The climax is a let down. This is one movie that could have done well without songs.

Sarfarosh (1999)

Best Directorial Debut

[10/10 · 12 June 1999]

John Matthan directs a fantastic film in his directorial debut. With so many characters popping in one after the other it would have been very difficult to maintain the flow of the film which John Matthan has done very successfuly. Aamir Khan as usual has given an excellent performance as A.C.P Rathore who is set to end the flow of Arms and ammunition from Pakistan to India. Aamir, the dedicated actor that he is, had studied all about the police force, the IPS people, talked with many police officers and stayed with some of them to study the role of ACP rathore.Nasserudin Shah has only 6 to 7 scenes but he dominates the movie. He has the role which was similarly played by Jack Nicholson in 'A Few Good Men'. Sonali Bendre is wasted in what turns out to be a fine performance by her. The surprise factor of the film is the acting of Mukesh Rishi which has got lots of critical acclaim from the critics and the general audience. Do not be surprised if he wins all the awards for "The Best Supporting Actor". Although the film is very predictible,the climax is the best part of the scene. This is the one of the best climax ever used in an hindi movie. Its hard to believe that this is John's directorial/writing debut.

Parinda (1989)

The Best Hindi Movie of the 1980's

[10 June 1999]

There are so many films made on underworld.The best amongst them are (not rated) Satya, Parinda, Ardh Satya and Hathyar(directed by J.P.Dutta).All the others are just spoofs of Deewar. This movie , although has a predictable screenplay, has the best and the most sensible climax of a hindi movie. To reveal anything else would be criminal. Watch this movie at any cost.