Satya

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:-)

this film is easily one of the greatest indian gangster films.this film along with "parinda" are great examples of the indian film noir/gangster genre. it has good performances from the entire cast with MANOJ BAJPAI'S performance being the best. another great aspect of the film is the amazing background score by SANDEEP CHOWTA. DONT MISS THIS FILM.*****[out of 5]

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.

Such was the power of this movie that people in the movie house were actually jeering when the occasional song came around(even the mandatory "rain song"). A sight very uncommon in Indian cinemas!!

The movie scored highly over the others in it's genre mainly because of its realistic portrayal of incidents like shooting, fighting etc, without being overly dramatic.

Ironically, the name of the movie is derived from it's principal character Satya, but the real hero of the movie is Bhiku Matre, played by the IMMENSELY talented Manoj Bajpai. The character Satya is just the central hinge around which the movie rotates.

The violent scenes in the movie are shot in a typical Hollywood style, and it's just shoot at sight everywhere.

Just when you start to get the feeling that it is IN to go around with a rod in your pocket, the morality lesson takes over and the gun-slingers eventually meet their end.

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!