Once in a while comes a movie, which redefines the very essence of cinema in bollywood. It was Mughal-e-azam first and then came Sholay and followed by Hum aapke Hain Koun. Nayak does the same thing!
Nayak is Director Shankar’s magnum opus. This is his Hindi debut film and dare I say a great Hindi debut film. He is a Tamil film director with many Tamil super hits under his belt. He was the director of the Tamil version of the movie named Mudhalvan starring Arjun Sarja and Manisha koirala.
Shivaji Rao (Anil Kapoor) Is a normal TV cameraman who shoots into the limelight when he captures on film the in-depth coverage of a riot which exposes the corruptedness of the current chief minister of Maharashra named Balraj Sinha (Amrish Puri). Shivaji is elevated to the post of a talk show host and his first guest is the CM! So in the show, Shivaji makes allegations against the CM backed by solid evidence and in the heat of things one thing leads to another. The CM challenges Shivaji to becomes the CM for a day and Shivaji accepts. So Shivaji is CM for a day and in that single day removes almost the whole corruption of the government by firing corrupt officials at the spot. At the end of the day he arrests the former CM! So he makes a lot of enemies obviously and loses his family and gets beaten up himself. He then floats his own political party and what happens next forms the rest of the plot of this superb movie. The last scene of this movie is particularly brilliant.
Anil Kapoor has given the performance of a lifetime. You actually hope that there was someone like him to lead our country . Amrish puri as the corrupt CM excels . Paresh Rawal as the wise cracking and witty PA to both the CM is great and spontaneous. Rani Mukherjee has done her role of shivaji’s sweetheart excellently and Johny Lever provides the comic relief.
There are many excellent scenes in the movie. Like the one where he fires 30000 officials at a go and the way he disguises and catches the corrupt officials red handed. There is also that one scene where the people bathe him in milk like a god. The movie is technically brilliant. There is this one shot where the director has used 36 terriflex cameras ! A world record I might add ! The songs too are hummable and don’t really interfere with the story line. The movie never bores you a minute and it is a must see.