Sunny Deol has been an ace action star right from the beginning.Unlike Dharmendra, who changed his image from that of a sober romantic hero in family dramas like Bandini and Anupama to He-man later with Phool aur Pathar-1966.Sunny did some amazing action even in his romantic superhit debut Betaab.If one looks at some early films of Sunny which did not click then 2 movies stand out.One is J.P.Dutta’s Yateem and the other is Rahul Rawail’s Dacait.Although both these movies did not click but they got critical acclaim.I remember way back in 1986-87 when the film came I got some good reviews about the movie from my aunt and grandomther.However when I watched some portions of the movie I got scared by the violence in the mid and did not watch the movie.Although I saw some scenes whenever it comes on Star Gold but was never able to watch it completely.Last month when the movie came on Star Gold I told my sister 2 days in advance that I would watch the movie and so please do not fight for switching the channels till the movie is over.
The movie is set in a village where Devi Chaudhrian(Raakhee Gulzar) commands respect.She is a widow and we are told that her husband was a simple villager who was killed by the henchmen of Thakur Bhanwar Singh(Raza Murad).Devi’s elder son Amrit Yadav(Suresh Oberoi) is a hardworking farmer.He is totally against the supremacy of Thakur and hates Bhanwar Singh.Bhanwar Singh is a terror among the villagers.His deeds include beating poor farmers and taking their land forcefully by getting their thumbimprints.His son Badri Singh(Dan Dhanoa) is also a cruel soul.Devi’s second son Arjun Yadav(Sunny Deol) is a young educated boy who has just retuned from city after completing his studies.He is in love with the village simpleton(Meenakshi Sheshadri).His friend Malhar has become a dacoit and stays in the ravines.He tries hard to convince Malhar that there is law and justice in the country and one should not lead the life of gun but in vain.His other friend Ahmad(Satyajeet)is as dear to Arjun as his brother.Arjun also has a younger sister(Urmila).Arjun also constantly tries to bring peace to the rivalry between his elder brother and the Thakur.
However things change.Bhanwar Singh’s tyranny scales new heights and he is insulted by both Amrit and Arjun.He vows to take revenge and kills Arjun’s entire family just leaving him injured and his mother Devi as insane.The police
does not do anything as the police Inspector Bishnu Panday(Paresh Rawal) is a corrupt man.Fed up of the injustice Arjun joins hands with Malhar and becomes a Dacait.The rest of the movie is about Arjun killing the evil men one by one.Bishnu Panday is troubled as the new I.G.(Shafi Inamdar) is fed up of dacoits and asks him to produce results as fast he can.Bishnu hatches a plan with Lala(Harish Patel) and traps Malhar.Malhar is killed and this is the final blow to Arjun.Arjun kills Lala and
Bishnu.Ahmad also joins his gang.In the end Arjun kills Badri and Bhanwar and rescues the villagers of the misery.He also dies in the process.
The movie comes from the team of Betaab and Arjun.Both movies were written by Javed Akhtar, directed by Rahul Rawail, Sunny played the lead and both were superhits as well as got great critical acclaim.Needless to say the expectations
from Dacait were very high and I must say that Dacait does not match upto the previous 2 movies of this trilogy.The movie is decent but one cannot compare it with Betaab or Arjun.Javed Akhtar got his first independent superhit as a writer-after he
broke away from Salim- in the form of Betaab.After that although Yash Johar’s Duniya(read my review) and Yash Chopra’s Mashaal(read my review) got him great critical acclaim, commercial success came again in the form of Arjun and Subash Ghai’s
Meri Jung.In Dacait he has chosen the village life as opposed to city life where all his remaining independently written movies are set.Infact even as a team Sholay is the only other film which was set completely in village except the ill-fated Joshilay which Javed wrote.The movie is inspired by classics like Mother India, Ganga Jamuna and Mujhe Jeene Do all of which showed how the leading man became a dacoit.It seems Akhtar has used Dacait as a platform to give his tributes to these masterpieces.The climax where Sunny burns all the account books is heavily inspired by Mother India where Sunil Dutt does the same.The screenplay is okay but the dailogues are just ordinary and do not have the razor sharp edge of Salim-Javed brand.
In 1996 after watching Ghatak-another Sunny Deol actioner I had remarked that it seems the director and script writer Raj Kumar Santoshi had given a free hand to action director as after a point what remained in the film was just fights.I did not know that a decade earlier same thing was done by script writer-Javed Akhtar and director-Rahul Rawail in Dacait.The entire second half which is more than 1.5 hours is just action, action and action.The fights appear so continously that even a die-hard action fan like me also feels fed up at times of the fights.The action without a doubt is excellent.Even though there is an overdoze of it yet one cannot take away the credit from action director for composing some excellent fights.The fight where Sunny kills a pehelwan in a fair is excellently shot.The scene in the temple which is surrounded by trishuls and Sunny kills the goon is also well executed.Almost a decade and half later in Rawail’s Arjun Pandit-there was a fight between Sunny Deol(who else) and Shahbaz Khan in the buddhist monastery was well shot and got acclaim.The temple fight is nothing less than that.However the scene where Sunny, Meenakshi Sheshadri and his friends are running and Meenakshi feels very thirsty is one of the best action scenes shot in Indian cinema(read my review-Top 20 action sequences).The herd of camels running and Sunny running in between them is awesome and a similar scene was shot in the climax of
Deewar-the one about Indian soldiers in Pakistani jail.
p.s.read my comments