Apradh

Feroz Khan has always facinated me.Although he was a dashing looking man who had oodles of style and less of acting talent I really admired the movies he made.Feroz Khan can easily be said as the most stylish filmmaker this side of pacific.The movies which he made generally revolved around sex,violence and some great music.Still he would show these elements with such style that his fans still have fond memorie of the movies he made.His most famous movie as a film-maker has been Qurbaani,yet his other movies also carry the typical Feroz Khan stamp with much success.Last year when I was bed-ridden following an operation I decided to watch 'Apradh', the movie from where The Feroz phenomena began. Ram(Feroz Khan) is a dashing Formula-1 race driver(Karthikeyan is still trying to be one) and is in Europe to take part in the world championship.He is India's hope at the race.He meets a thief Meena(Mumtaz) by chance.Meena is on a move after stealing a Rs. 15 lakh necklace(2,00,000 U.S. dollars in those days according to the jeweller).Meena hides the necklace in Ram's attire in a moment of fear.Meena keeps getting back to Ram in search of the necklace as her bosses want the necklace.When Ram comes to know about the whole thing he not only rescues Meena from the gang but falls in love with her as well.In the meantime he manages to win the Formula-One race as well(Indians are still dreaming that one day some Indian will actually do this). After winning the race Ram decides to return to India.A stranger gives him a bottle which supposedly contains medicines which are meant for his elder brother Harnam.However the bottle contains diamonds and Ram is taken by the police. On being released and returning to India Ram feels that he will live a simple life and would not induge in any criminal activities.He marries Meena and they live happily till Harnam(Prem Chopra) comes to them.Diamonds and Meena create a misunderstanding between the brothers.To make matters worse one f Harnam's men breaks away from him and swears to kill Ram.After having lived the life of a criminal for long Harnam finally dies while protecting Ram from the bullets being fired from his own men. In 1993 when I watched Baazigar,I could not stop praising Abbas-Mustan for shooting a motorcar race in a hindi movie.Last year when I watched Apradh I was shocked to see that the hero of the movie is shown as a Formula One race driver.Clearly the story of Apradh written by Akhtar-Ul-Iman was way ahead of its time.It was aided by a tight screenplay and good dailogues.Another plus point of the movie is its good music.the songs 'Tum Mile Pyaar se...' and 'Hamaare Sivah..' are popular to this day.kalyanji-anandji formed a dream team with Feroz Khan starting with Apradh.Surprisingly they use Kishore(instead of Feroz's favourite Mukesh) as the voice of Feroz Khan which yields good results.Technically the film is brilliant.The cinematography,sound recording,action sequences,editing and above all the locations are absolutely fabulous. Feroz Khan looks his dashing best in Apradh.Although Feroz became a popular star in early star but he was famous for his supporting roles.This pushed him to become a filmmaker so that he gets a good lead role.Feroz acts quite well and fits in easily to the role of Formula One Race driver.Mumtaz also looks good and acts decently.The film has some bad acting by the side villains specially the actors who played the gang members of Mumtaz. However if there is one performance which lingers on even after the movie is over it is that of Prem Chopra's.Apradh is arguably Prem Chopra's best performance till date.In a role which gave him ample opportunity to be that bad guy yet be human and have emotions for his younger brother even till the end Chopra gives a sterling performance.Starting from Apradh was another Feroz Khan tradition that was followed in all F.K.International movies.The tradition was that the other lead actor would die in the end and will have a more power packed role as compared to Feroz himself.Whether it is Prem nath in Dharmatma,Vinod Khanna in Qurbaani,Anil kapoor in Jaanbaaz or Vinod Khanna in Dayavan,all followed this trend.It is quite surprising that Feroz never casted Prem Chopra after the success of Apradh. To say the obvious,Apradh belongs to Feroz Khan the filmmaker.His work as a producer is evident from the high class production balues of the movie.But it is his work as a director which really impresses.The western influence is very visible throghout the movie.Foreign locales,cabarets,gangsters and the murder of the lady in bath-tub show that Feroz was highly influenced by English movies.But Feroz surprised me the way he handled the emotional scenes and the bonding between the brothers.He is totally in form even while handling the most Hindustani emotion.The icing on the cake however is the way in which he has shot the Car Race.It is said that he shot the famous Nuremberg Car Race(Germany) with the aid of a prince from the royal family of the Leopolds.I am still waiting for any Indian director to show a car race similar to this one in a Hindi movie. Apradh when released in 1972 was a hit and it started the trend of Feroz Khan's stylised Hindi movies.

Pros : Feroz Khan,Prem Chopra and car race

Cons : : Overacting by some side villains

Plot : Good - Original and a good plot

Cast Performance : Good - Overall good

Soundtrack : Good - Except a few

Camera Effects : Very good - One of the best

Watch this movie with : Family

Somehow, this movie had reminded me of the Hollywood movie "The Way to Dusty Death". I had seen that movie long time back in the 70s and don't clearly remember it but I know it revolved around a Formula-1 champion who happens to get involved in some kind of drug crime and the Authorities use him as a mole. Though the stories of the two movies are quite different but the plot seems to arise from the same idea. I am trying to get hold of "The Way to Dusty Death" but it seems to have vanished from the market. (Can someone help me get a copy ???) Incidentally I was an ardent fan of Alistair McLean's novels and this happened to be one of them - and I had read it sometime in 1978 or so.

Have often noticed that Feroz Khan's movies are often inspired by not-so-popular western movies ( Qurbani was almost of copy of an English movie about the friendship of two friends, Dharmatma was very much the screenplay-synchronized version of The Godfather - including the name, Khotey Sikkay was again a Clint Eastwood starrer copy). But all that said, his movies still are very much watch-able!