Friday, January 20, 2006

Apaharan

I watched the Hindi film Apaharan directed Prakash Jha. The film shows the story of Bihar's "kidnapping industry" (!), and it is one of the umpteenth films that attempt to take a look at the social injustice, corruption in politics, etc. Ajay Devgan plays the lead role of an unemployed young man named Ajay. His father (Mohan Aghase) believes in being a good and responsible civilian, and he is not willing to budge from the path of honesty even to help his son get a job. Ajay, in a desperate condition, tries his luck at kidnapping, and soon emerges as an assistant of the Don Tabrez (Nana Patekar). The rest of the story shows how Ajay returns back to his father's ideals.

Nana Patekar and Ajay Devgan in Apaharan (nowrunning dot com)


Prakash Jha has made this film sincerely, with very minimum of the Bollywood masala ingredients. Ajay Devgan and Nana Patekar have given fine performances, even though their characters are repetitions of several other similar roles they have done earlier (Ajay Devgan in Company and Nana Patekar in almost half of the roles in his career). Bipasha Basu is the only female character to appear in more than a scene, and her role lasts for no more than few scenes, thankfully.

The main problem with Apaharan is that it doesn't tell anything new. It shows the same old stories about violence, corruption, politics, etc, which we have seen in so many other Hindi films. Even the actors that play the roles are no different. How many times have we seen Yashpal Sharma playing the role of a goonda? Even the background score is uninteresting. Overall, the film made me feel terribly sleepy.

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