Angaar

It's surprising that this movie did not win that accolades it deserves. When I saw it few days back I was amazed by the story , dialogues, direction and the performances. All were amazing.

The plot of the movie is the socio-economic class difference which exists even today in Mumbai. There are rich mansions and next to it are hutments of laborers. There are people earning 10 digit incomes and there are people who daily struggle to earn 10 bucks in an hour. This is how the story begins with Underworld Don, Jahangir's Khan palatial life with his two sons viz. Majid and Farid. Majid is married and has a mentally retarded son. On the other end we have a unemployed Jaggu living a middle class life with his parents, younger sister and is a leader of the young crowd in Asha colony. As the saying goes that wealth does not necessarily bring happiness, Jahangir has always a dispute with Majid. Jahangir is known to help poor people but for Majid what matters is wealth and power. Jaggu and his family have a very happy going life. Jaggu happens to meet a very shy girl named Mili and it doesn't take much time for them to fall in love.

The action begins when Majid eyes Asha colony and requests Jaggu to take some money and ask people living there to evacuate it. Jaggu refuses even when Jahangir calls to his palace to talk about it. This makes Jahangir furious and he orders Farid to beat Jaggu heavily. In the ongoing clash between Farid and Jaggu, Farid loses his life. Revengeful Majid proves in the court that Jaggu is insane and orders his doctors in mental asylum to torture Jaggu to an extent that he becomes a vegetable. A press reporter Parvez and Mili try to help Jaggu through their publications. Majid orders his men to kill Parvez but things turn upside down when his men kill Jaggu's father instead. Jahangir now repents his fury which leads to all this and requests his loyal Anwar to protect Jaggu in the asylum. Anwar fights till his death and rescues Jaggu. Mili and Parvez take Jaggu home and try to bring him to normal through his old memories. Jaggu recovers and takes revenge against Majid and his men till the end with Jahangir supporting him.

What the movie lacks is in the execution of last 20 minutes. Jaggu's rebellion against the law and order system is highly overdone. How come they get so much amount of RDX to blast each and every building of Majid? Why would Majid wait till Jaggu recovers, in order to bring down Asha colony? Where were Jaggu and his friends when Asha colony was brought down? Due to all this the movie turns out to be an action flick rather than bring a classic.

If this part is left aside the rest of the movie is good. Direction was good. Script was well made and very good performances by Kadar Khan, Nana Patekar and Jackie Shroff. Most of their movies Nana would dominate Jackie, but in this movie Jackie performs in par with Nana. All the supporting case were adequate in their performance. For Hindi movie viewers, I would recommend them to watch at least once.

Large empty spaces...fore-grounded sound effects...minimal background score...unusual song picturizations...brutal violence and dystopian atmosphere are just a few of the elements which makes this familiar underworld tale by K Shashilal Nayar, a minor masterpiece.

Jehangir Khan (loosely based on Haji Mastan played aptly by Kadar Khan) and his sons; the gangster Farid Khan (Mazhar Khan) and the white collar builder Majid Khan (with an Hafeez Contractor agenda of 'Bombay should be clean!' played by Nana Patekar with a nervous calm) dominates the matters of the city. Jehangir Khan, the mafia ruler of the city since the last 40 years now proclaims himself as the messiah of poor and just like the Mughal king Jehangir promises justice in an open personal court. Whereas, Farid's men create havoc in poor slums by eve teasing and other illicit activities.

One such slum is 'Asha Colony' whose unofficial leader is Jaikishan alias Jaggu (Jackie Shroff) who is a graduate and a job seeker and an occasional street musician. World's of Jehangir and Jaggu collide when Majid gets determined to wipe off Asha Colony to make multistoried buildings there.

The cinema of Angaar is gritty and atmospheric...the death scene of Jaggu's father and Jaggu's torture in the state mental asylum are pretty hardcore. Most of all, the climax where multistoried buildings are blown off is both spectacular and a form of unique vengeance to the old 'Basti' problem.

Nayar's real cinematic achievement comes with his ability of unique treatment of spaces, both visual and aural. Visually, most of the times the spaces were either kept very empty or overpopulated with people which presents the city of Bombay as a city of extreme opposites. Aurally, in the key scenes one crucial sound is kept in the foreground instead of always resorting to the mundane background score which provide the scenes with necessary tension and urgency like in the scene where Jaggu first meets Majid at a construction site. Except the dialogue only one sound can be heard which is that of Jaggu's motorcycle.

Performances in the film are truly A-class, especially those of Jackie Shroff, Kadar Khan and Nana Patekar. Even minor characters like those played by Nina Gupta, Achyut Potdar and Kiran Kumar leave their mark.

This is a Hindi language film of the gangster genre with Jackie Shroff and Nana Patekar in key roles.

The film is highly underrated but actually was outstanding for its storyline and performances. With a gritty script and relatable situations in Mumbai where builders are always on the lookout to set up multi storeys via gangsters as the legal route is cumbersome. And gang lords running parallel courts and starting to see themselves as messiahs. And the real problems of the youth, of joblessness and fall into violence to protect their self respect. The film has it all elevated by excellent performances by everyone in the cast. Every character is shown in grey, with a human side to them. Nana Patekar is the cruel businessman bent upon revenge for his brother's death, but also tends to a mentally challenged child. There is a scene where his assistant played by Kiran Kumar has to convey the news of his younger son to Kadar Khan, and the loud wail of the gang lord father is unforgettable. All of those who played a part should consider this one of their best films! A must watch for gritty tough film lovers.

underrated movie. Suffered from production delays. Notable for Kadar Khan's performance, and for Mazhar Khan's last turn on screen. Jackie did a workman like job. Dimple's character, weird for weirdness's sake. Nana channelled Nana. Loved Kadar khan and the seedy mumbhai ambience.

This movie deserves accolades for its awesome direction, characters , screenplay and dialogues ! I was surprised to see that is is rated 6.7 on imdb and surely it deserves much more ! It is not less than a classic gangster flick.