Zanjeer

As a kid, little Vijay, while hiding in a wardrobe, witnessed his parents' assassination by Teja, a man who was a member of a mafia group Vijay's father was a part of and retired. Vijay was adopted by a police officer and as he grew up, he himself became a hot-blooded policeman. Vijay does not remember Teja. He only vaguely remembers the murderer's golden chain with a white horse hanging on it.

That's the story of Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer, an action-packed drama and one of the first films which shot the leading actor Amitabh Bachchan to fame. Zanjeer is an entertaining movie, and the story is interesting and well told. The direction is also pretty good. The characters are well-written. Bachchan's character is that of a very serious and uncompromising young man who takes crime as a personal affront and is thus often put in trouble with his superiors.

The film has several actors supporting Bachchan, including Jaya Bhaduri, his real-life future-wife, who plays the sassy and lovely Mala. The chemistry between the two is wonderful as always. Pran, also an actor who frequently collaborated with Bachchan, plays Sher Khan, a kind-hearted, brave and smart man who befriends Vijay in some unusual circumstances and supports him in every step throughout the film. Om Prakash also appears in a small but important role of a drunkard who is also Vijay's informant.

Bachchan is excellent as Vijay. It's easy to see why this was a star-turning performance for this towering actor. He is restrained and inhibited and brilliantly displays his character's internal turmoil and fear. Jaya Bhaduri is absolutely charming and natural as Mala, and it's nice to see her transform so convincingly from a vivacious girl to a mature and supportive wife. Pran is brilliant in his rather unusual role. Om Prakash is good in his role of a traumatised man. Bindu makes her usual vamp act, and Ajit is okay as Teja.

Zanjeer is an enjoyable and well-made film. It is at times a bit unsettling and disturbing but it is generally well-executed, well-narrated and well-acted. The film's music is also very nice, though the cabaret number was a bit annoying. I liked it that no songs were given to Bachchan. It only contributed to his serious image in the film. In its favour it can also be said that the film is devoid of too much melodrama, though it is not very realistic in the last portions. Anyway, this is a good, classic Hindi movie, I recommend you to watch it.

This movie is lots of fun. It has EVERYthing in it - car chases, dance numbers, action, crime, revenge - like many Bollywood films - there's something for everyone. The film cant help but be dated - some of the 70's era clothes are hilarious. Some of the cliché zoom shots to an actor's face and yes, the movie is long - 145 minutes - it is slow at times but hang in there - it is worth it. The fact that Bachchan became a huge superstar after this also makes it a must-see. He supposedly found the seeds here to start his "angry young man" act. And the gypsy knife sharpener girl became his future wife in real life. I loved her first dance number where she gets customers to come out of their homes and bring her their knives to be sharpened. One thing about the copy we watched on DVD - it was subtitled but the SONGS WERE NOT. Frustrating.

This hard-hitting film is my favourite for many reasons: -powerful performance by amitabh (laughs twice in the movie) -train murder scene which deserves putting Prakash Mehra up there with the all time director greats. Also Mehra has a penchant for location shooting and you get to see some of the dark sides of the mumbai locale. -esoteric motifs and hints strewn all over the movie('Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool') -Teja the bad guy is convincingly portrayed by Ajit -The unending quest for justice and it's bittersweet resolutions -The theme of love vs. revenge All these were amplified in Mehra's second classic 'Muqaddar ka Sikandar' In short it is rewarding viewing!

Zanjeer review :

"Jab tak baithne ko na kaha jaye, sharaafat se khade raho. Yeh Police station hai, tumhare BAAP ka ghar nahi"

When Pran Saahab's Sher Khan had to eat humble pie to a lanky police officer whose eyes spoke volumes, a super star was born.

Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer gave India its first angry young man. Playing an upright cop who is battling his troubled childhood memory, Amitabh Bachchan was just the kind of the hero the aam junta of that time was looking to celebrate. After all, he epitomised their frustrations and angst against the system.

Salim Javed's script may seem tailor made for Bachchan today but Zanjeer was a film rejected by many reigning superstars from Rajkumar to Dev Anand before landing in Amitabh's lap.

Ajit played the sophisticated Teja whose Mona darling jokes are still popular. I am particularly fond of the restaurant scene where Amitabh goes to meet Teja and Mona (Bindu) having their dinner.

"Khana khate waqt cigarette peena bahut buri baat hai"

Punchy dialogues, perfect plot and an angry Amitabh. Thats the immortal Zanjeer!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

As a child, Vijay witnesses the murder of his parents by their unscrupulous employer, worried that pops will spill the beans on his "spurious injections" business. As luck would have it, Vijay was hidden in a wardrobe at the time and all he sees of the killer is his golden chain, with a cute little plastic horse dangling from it.

20 years later, Vijay has morphed into Amitabh Bachchan and is a police officer, always in trouble with his superiors because of his tendency to take crime as a personal affront and use any means available to punish its perpetrators. He's a very serious and intense young man, haunted by nightmares of his parents murder.

Prior to 1973, the name Amitabh Bachchan was not revered amongst Indian cinema goers as it has been ever since. Indeed, Amitabh was considered to be box office poison at the time, and director Prakash Mehra was thought to have gone mad for choosing him as the star in his new film Zanjeer. History appears to be on Mehra's side, for Zanjeer was a resounding success and created the "Angry Young Man" image for Amitabh Bachchan that dominated Indian cinema for the next decade.

Zanjeer follows the same pattern as many of Amitabh's films - or rather, many of his films follow the pattern of Zanjeer, I guess. Amitabh has proven himself a very versatile actor, but it is the driven intensity he brings to roles such as this that made him Bollywood's undisputed king. Driven by a rage he cannot release, he tears up the screen and the bad guys but remains vulnerable and easy to empathise with.

Bachchan is joined by some interesting characters - the larger than life good-bad guy Tiger played by Pran, and the sassy gypsy girl played by Jaya Bhaduri, who was Bachchan's love interest and later his real-life wife. Unfortunately the bad-bad guy is less charismatic and interesting than he might have been - he is cold and cruel, but not as "villainous" as he might have been.

I don't know just how original Zanjeer was at the time of its release... it seems to follow a pretty conventional formula, but the impression I get is that it largely created this formula. Perhaps similar plots were covered before, but I can't imagine anybody filling such a role as well as Amitabh. Certainly Zanjeer was a runaway success, and a profoundly influential film.

Sadly, in this case 'first' does not mean 'best'. Although it's certainly a solid film, it's not as well scripted as other films along similar lines, and Amitabh doesn't have the cocky confidence that he would quickly develop and employ so effectively in his numerous star roles. I guess everybody involved was still finding their feet a little, so it's not surprising that the elements presented here would be improved on in later films.

The conclusion I draw is that ZANJEER is not the best starting point on an Amitabh adulation path, but is definitely worth picking up once such a path has been a little trodden in.

My enjoyment of the film was doubtless hampered somewhat by the DVD presentation, which is clearly heavily cropped - most obviously at the bottom of the screen, where a good 20% must be missing. This was probably done to get rid of subtitles burnt into the print used for mastering, but unfortunately you lose a lot along with the subs - people's mouths during close-ups, for instance. I think it was also cropped at the sides, possibly to preserve aspect ratio. It may even have been a 4:3 film originally though, cropped to more than 1.85:1. Whilst this cropping (and general print wear and tear) do not ruin the film, it's definitely an impediment to full appreciation.