Satya

SATYA stands out from the normal Bollywood romance fair, being a rather dark and gritty look at the crime underworld of Mumbai. The movie follows the fortunes of a guy called Satya (lit: "Truth") in the underworld, and the subtle script explores the theme with a lot of depth.

Satya himself is a wonderful character, one of my favourite screen characters ever in fact. Part of this is due to his fantastic beard, but the depth and humanity his character and the performance of J.D.Chakravarti have contribute a lot too.

The script and direction of SATYA show a sharpness that cuts to the core of its subject matter in a way that the song and dance routines of the blockbuster movies from any country do. The 3 hour running time allows it to develop and nurture its themes very thoroughly. The result is one of the most palpably intelligent movies ever made about gangsters.

This is no romanticised "cool of the killer" type movie, it's a pretty honest and thought provoking look at a lifestyle that hopefully nobody reading this has direct involvement with.

Strong recommendation to see!

Ramgopal Varma's hard hitting film on the Bombay Underworld. This movie is a classic from scene one to the climax. When you see this movie you will see history in the making. A hard hitting story of a person from nowhere , Satya. How he joins the underworld gang led by bhiku mhatre. This movie gives one message hard "CRIME NEVER PAYS".The scene where chander(snehal dabi) tells a joke, the scene where bhiku mhatre satya vidya and pyaari go for a dinner, the scene where yedda scares the music director romu sagar, the theatre scene, the climax, all these scenes will go down in the history of indian cinema as classic scenes. Urmila Matondkar as Satya's Girlfriend and Shefali Chaaya as bhiku mhatre's wife are excellent. J.D.Chakravarthi is brilliant as Satya. Manoj Bajpai gives an excellent and award winning performance as bhiku mhatre.He has managed to make the character of bhiku mhatre an immortal one like late amjad khan did for gabbar singh. Govind Namdeo is brilliant as Bhau. Co-script writer saurabh shukla is superb as kallu mama.It is so nice to see that first time writers saurabh shukla & anurag kashyap wrote such a brilliant script. A special mention must be made of the best cameo since rajesh khanna's cameo in andaz, by paresh raawal as commissioner of police.Satya was supposed to be made as a songless film but co-producer Bharat Shah felt that no distributor will buy the film and it will be too tense. Music director Vishal Bharadwaj and lyricist Gulzar were roped in to provide the music for this film and they did a brilliant work. The song "Sapne Main milti hai" and "kallu mamma" are too good. This is one of the very few brilliant movies of the 90's.

After being a fan of English movies for some time, there are not many Hindi movies that one would REALLY appreciate. And if one does, this movie would be the first one. It would be almost impossible for Varma to come out with a movie as good as this once again. This movie is fundoo (aka EXCELLENT) from acting, direction, music point of view. Hats off to Varma. Keep up being different.

Here is a movie that would go a classic as far as indian films go. A true rendition of the underworld saga of "Mumbai". Mumbai ka king kaun-Manoj Bajpai. A brilliant performance. Also, a masterpiece background score by Sandeep Chowta. One movie that could have given a good run for money to any of it's hollywood peers.Of course, if cinema knew no language:-)

I've been newly introduced to Indian film, so I'm no expert. But clearly it is more than just Bollywood. Viewing "Satya," after previously seeing another film by Ram Gopal Varma, "Company," I would have to say that Varma is one of the greatest filmmakers now working. With these two movies that are deft, unsentimental, and at the same time not hard-boiled, he seems to add something unique to the gangster genre: the emotionally rounded portrait of the gangster, the gangster inside-out.

Unlike American gangster movies of the 30s, which "Satya" and "Company" remind me of somewhat, Varma's movies are more philosophically ambitious and do something more difficult: they manage to be moral without moralizing. And differently than Coppola's "Godfather" trilogy, where people seem born into a life of crime, Varma shows them becoming criminals and the results of the choices they've made.

I should also say, from the point of view of entertainment, Varma's films are riveting and earn every second of their "Bollywood" length. They do not have unnecessary "filler." Even the de riguer musical numbers "work" and have arrangements and choreography you could imagine on a hip New York stage.

If it hasn't already happened, Varma is ready to be discovered by the festival circuit. I myself am ordering everything I can find by him on DVD and can't wait to check out his other work. Films like "Satya" and "Company" are surely not a fluke.