Kaala Patthar

Kaala Patthar

Just watched one of the underrated gems of Yash Chopra, Kaala Patthar. It is a coalmine disaster story, inspired by the 1975 Chasnala mining disaster. What caught me most was the characters, who had unique backstories and motivations. Shatrughan Sinha's role was most fascinating to me, apart from the dusted, red-eyed angry young man, Amitabh Bachchan. The climax scene of the real disaster is realistic, credits to Yash Chopra's brilliant direction.

The takeaway from the movie is the attitude of Magal, who despite being a criminal, won hearts. He taught me to be full of life: "Chal Beta, Shabash!"

Kaala Patthar review :

A lesser celebrated film of director Yash Chopra; Kaala Patthar was loosely based on the real life Chasnala mining disaster with some wonderful characters written by the legendary Salim Javed.

Amitabh Bachchan is Vijay, an ex army officer who is working as a mine worker in order to forget his past guilt. Shatrughan Sinha in his career best act played Mangal, an escaped convict who takes a job in the mine to evade the cops while Shashi Kapoor is the honest and 'dil ka achcha' engineer who warns the greedy mine owner (Prem Chopra) against the impending flood in the mine.

The performances were universally first rate. Amitabh Bachchan spoke through his eyes and his simmering intensity reaches a crescendo when he yells at Prem Chopra in a superbly executed scene. Shatru's "Teesre baadshah hum hai" is still memorable and oft repeated catchphrase. Prem Chopra was apt as Dhanraj Puri, the loathesome mine owner who treats his employees like slaves. Rakhee, Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh provided the romantic angle to the three heroes.

Kaala Patthar was a technically slick and well executed disaster drama but despite all its positives, didn't work that well with the audience. Maybe, it was the grim subject and lack of comedy which kept them away.

Nevertheless, this is one of Bachchan's finest performance. Whether it is the scene where he grabs a knife from Sharat Saxena or the rescue operation in the climax, Amitabh was simply extraordinary. He as well as Shatrughan Sinha were nominated for the Best actor and best supporting actor at the Filmfare awards that year. Unfortunately, they didnt win the honours. Just like the film!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

This film has an amazingly ambitious story for its time. a story about poorly treated coal mine workers and a deeply powerfull hero destined to a life of pain and suffering for his mistakes in his past. this film boasts some powerfull performances from Amithab Bachan and Shatrugan sinha. Rakhee plays the soulful doctor destined to help the unfortunate wherever they may be thus on of the most famous lines in bollywood history when Rakhee is trying help The injured Amithab. "please why dont you try uderstand" "Pain is my destiny doctor and I can't avoid it!" Shashi kapoor plays the Dashing young romantic engineer together with Parveen Bhabi the news reporter who plays his girlfriend in the film. The story works well on a whole though technically the film leaves a lot to be desired. Though the scenes in the coal mines are well done. The rest is a bit shoddy in places, but some brilliant acting is what takes this film beyond its rather dull appearance. This film comes with a soulful soundtrack that really works well and some fantastic songs to be rememderd forever... they just don't make stories like this anymore.....shame really

I thought it was an Indianized version of Lord Jim, which was itself based on the true story of the abandonment of a ship called PATNA! In Lord Jim too the protagonist lives with the fact of his own cowardice and eventually redeems himself by taking on ugly forces that prey on the poor and weak. Kaala Paththar had two other men in the story - and followed the usual 70s/80s cliché of the man with the criminal background having to die in the end. But it was also quite uncliched in having no overt romantic track between Shashi and Parveen Babi, and a very quiet connection between Amitabh and Rakhi. Rakhi never enunciated well in Hindi and it got worse in moments of agitation. Here she did not have to speak much and was OK. I always liked Neetu Singh and she was good in this one too. Shatru was never a favorite but he was quite restrained here IMO. For a film from the 70s, this was indeed quite a different one and I enjoyed it. Amitabh was excellent as the coward, then the slowly burning up with self-disgust man, and finally as the hero. The mine disaster was well shot and the dark and claustrophobic kind of picturization made is seem realistic. There were not really many songs to disrupt the narrative - another unique feature for a film of its time. Fr instance, no sad number with wailing violins as the hero sits and stares at the stars and broods over his past! I gave it 8/10.

KAALA PATTHAR is my all time favorite movie. I never imagined even in my dreams that I'm going to watch this masterpiece with my father on the Big Screen and that too on Amitabh Bachchan's 80th Birthday. Mr. Bachchan as Angry young man, Vijay was phenomenal he is an absolute legend. After 43 years of its release this movie is still impactful with the powerpacked performance and striking dialogue delivery of Shatrughn Sinha and pleasant appearance of Shashi Kapoor. Beautiful Multistarer Direction of Yash Chopra, Script by Salim-Javed, Playbacks of Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Md. Rafi and Mahendra Kapoor everything was there to make it one of the most heroic Bollywood cinema.

#HappyBirthdayAmitabhBachchan #AB80 #KaalaPatthar.