Director: Rajan Johri
Cast: Om Puri, Ashutosh Rana, Abbas, Rajat Singh Bedi, Sharbani Mukherjee, Shama Sikander, Milind Gunaji, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sayaji
Shinde.
The story centres round three main characters. DGP Bhagat Pandey (Puri) the honest patriotic officer, Inspector Sukhdev Singh hot-blooded and disillusioned with the state of affairs and doesn't mind stepping outside the law to achieve his aim (Rana), and Rajguru (Abbas) son of a freedom fighter and an unemployed youth forced to take up the gun and turn into one of the most powerful dons of
Mumbai.
With these central characters and an assortment of other characters, the director brings out the politician-underworld nexus - how an anti-social element is created by these very politicians who use them as puppets to serve their ends and discard them when they've served their purpose or grown too big for their boots. The Mumbai slang, the underworld codes ('Supari' etc.), dialects spoken by the characters help in creating a realistic ambience. Apart from this there is some impressive performance from Om Puri and Ashutosh Rana. Pitted against their awesome talent is South's Abbas who has been given a meaty role and leaves a mark.
But the film has its minus points too It is sympathetic and a bit naive in its treatment of the 'dons' 'dadas' and 'bhais', citing financial constraints as factors that go to make these types. The politicians have no excuse for their unscrupulous, traitorous behaviour. If the dreaded 'don' Thavu, a school master turned underworld kingpin goes nostalgic and sheds tears over his tragic past which made him take up the gun; smaller 'bhais' like Munna and Guru have their sad stories too. Bar dancer Shweta (Sharbani) not to be left behind has her own sad story and though a seasoned dancer and the
protégé of an underworld thug is the clichéd virgin-being-forced-to-prostitute when Guru does the rescue act. Further, lot of scenes are repetitive - like the shoot-outs, encounters and gang wars.
Not for the faint-hearted, but for those who go for the slam-bang films.
