Aatish: Feel the Fire

I had seen this movie on June 19,1994 way back in my junior college days in a suburban theater in Mumbai, India. Seeing this movie, in June 2010, on cable-TV network reminded me of the good, old junior college days of mine when I had many close and true friends. This movie contains many action, romantic,sex scenes with half a dozen wonderful songs where the 4 lead actors - Sanjay Dutt, Raveena Tandon, Karishma Kapoor and Atul Agnihotri danced very well in all the music numbers. A cocktail of a bunch of foreign English movies such as "The State of Grace" , "A Better Tomorrow " and all the Lethal Weapon flicks mixed together, Aatish-Feel the Fire has wonderful cinematography, awesome visuals and breathtaking scenery.Shot extensively in Mauritius, Seychelles and Maldives, the 2 lead heroines of this movie - Raveena Tandon and Karishma Kapoor seem to be competing with each other not only in this 1994 release in the field of acting but also in dancing,dressing well,looking ravishing and above all exposing their beautiful bodies extensively.This movie made more news for the Karishma-Raveena on sets fighting and the pulling out of Ms Pooja Bhatt from the original star cast than anything else.

Aatish is a action packed movie that was fun to watch and is amazing. It is a copy of John Woo's Better Tomorrow, but Sanjay Gupta always copy's oriental movies. He copied Zinda from classic korean film oldboy and Kaante from City on Fire. That was acceptable because Quentin Tarantino did the same for his debut film. Anyway Aatish has action and lots of it, with some romance and family drama added in. Sanjay Dutt suits that kind of role and does a good job as usual. Aditya Pancholi is outstanding as the best friend. Atul is not that great, they could of got someone else to play the younger brother with the grudge. Raveena Tandon is damn sexy and id like to spend the night with her. Karishma Kapoor is damn annoying in every film add this one too. Both actresses had a famous cat fight while filming the song in this film. I support Raveena any day, as Karishma is a known annoying brat that needs a slap or too.

Aatish was way ahead of its time, in terms of execution.

In terms of story line it may have been a rehash of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow but technically it is one of the best to come out of Bollywood, and definitely one of the most stylish. It introduced quite a few things in terms of the technical aspect.

Sanjay Dutt, Raveena Tandon and Aditya Pancholi are perfectly cast.

Truth be told it is a fairly successful movie but could have done better at the box office had it got the cast right.

Atul Agnihotri and Karisma Kapoor are completely miscast. So is Shakti Kapoor. Debutant director Sanjay Gupta in his effort to give equal screen space to all goofed up big time. The 'Ya Dilruba' number is a perfect example of this goof up. The perfect chemistry between Dutt and Tandon is lost amidst close-ups of Agnihotri and Kapoor.

Agnihotri didn't have the personality to stand up against Dutt. Mind you, the film is a face-off between the two. Had the former been consigned to a bit part, like Mehul Kumar cleverly did in Krantiveer - allowing the formidable Nana Patekar to take centrestage - it would have been okay. Alas it wasn't the case. In what was meant to be a serious role Agnihotri looked (and acted) comical.

Besides, when you are making a big budget, stylish film, your antagonist has to have style. While Gupta got it right giving supporting parts to Ajit saab - an epitome of style and class - and even Gulshan Grover, he got it wrong with the main villain. Shakti Kapoor doesn't belong to this ecosystem, lacks class and comes across as cheap and petty. You can put him in an earthy, rustic film (Tohfa, Raja Babu, Gunda etc) but not one that is classy and elitist.

The movie also got it wrong as regards the selection of songs. While the album has eight songs in total, the three most hummable, 'Baarish Ne', 'Bolo Kahaan Gaye The', and the power-packed ditty 'Hasratein Hain Bahut Magar' don't find a place in the movie. Instead the director was happy with average numbers like 'Aa aa meri Janiya' and 'Kaash Tum'.

With three of the six principal characters seemingly out of place, you have lost half the battle. And the best songs, that could have helped control the damage, were also absent. This is what happened with Aatish. What could have been among the year's top three hits was relegated to outside the top 10.

Still, it remains one of Dutt's best (albeit underrated) works, and most certainly Pancholi's best.

This movie is all about Baba and his friend, his brother and his love interest. Though Baba sacrifices everything for his brother in the end, its his friendship with Nawab that catches your eye in this movie.

Baba (Sanjay Dutt) and Nawab (Aditya Panscholi) are the best hit men in town. They live for each other and would die for each other. Nawab doesn't have a family, but Baba has his younger brother (Atul Agnihotri). Baba is trying hard to keep his brother from the crime business and is grooming him to become a cop.

On an ill fated day Nawab decides to go for the 'namaz' when they are supposed to make a deal with Shaki Kapoor. Shakti tricks Baba as well as corners Nawab too. Baba serves a couple of years in prison while Nawab has his legs chopped off and left to beg for existence.

Meanwhile Avi finishes his training and is on trail for these gangsters. Half successful attempts are made to show the conflict Avi faces between his duty as a cop and his loyalty to his brother.

The best scene is when Baba has been released. Nawab, on a dark rainy night, has limped under a bridge and is about to take a bite of the dirty and wet piece of bread that is his dinner when he hears the words 'Kya Nawab, akele akele' ie 'Hey Nawab, having it alone ... huh!'. Even before raising his head to look who it is, his eyes are already in tears. He knows his friends Baba is back, his pillar of strength Baba is back and things will not be the same again. I will never forget Aditya Panscholi in this scene.

Nawab, proves his loyalty to his friend when in the climax he takes a bullet to protect Avi and dies. Even Baba in the end surrenders to law to protect the credentials of his cop brother.

Excellent movie. Emotionally charged. If you are the one who would go to any lengths for friendship or love, you know what I mean.

Now, this out-and-out actioner from Remix-Director, Sanjay Gupta, is not a bad piece if only you haven't any Hollywood or Hong Kong films at all. Reason being that Gupta rips of nearly every Hollywood action film that he can. Everything from Lethal Weapon 3, A Better Tommorrow, The Killer, Hard Target, Cyborg, Black Rain, 1492, T2, Scarface, etc, etc... has a scene or two remixed into this film. Even though this film has hardly any originality in it, one thing's for sure: This is one of Bollywood's finest action films ever...