My tears to Satya, as well as for those whom he killed.. says Ram Gopal Varma as an epilogue to this movie.
This movie has one of the best screenplay, direction, background score, cinematography, editing and acting performances, imho. Although we have seen so many Bollywood movies with ’underworld’ theme, this movie redefined the cliched concept. We usually see an honest protagonist who has big dreams and high hopes from his life, who has a lovely family, who is living a simple middle-class life, , and suddenly something very unfair happens and takes away everything from him. And he becomes a ’goonda’ to take revenge from bad-boys! Satya gave us a ’break’ from all these usual stuff.
Here, we have a simple (presumably) orphan man who comes to Mumbai with one small bag. No one tells us where he is coming from. He doesn’t have anyone in his life whom he can depend on, or who depends on him. He doesn’t have anything to do besides a small job as waiter in a bar. When he is at home, he just stares at the ceiling. And we wonder what he is thinking about. He is so aloof from the outer world that he doesn’t even care to peek outside the window. And finally, he enters the underworld as if he is trying to find a reason to live!
Bhikhu teaches him how to operate an italian made makkhan gun. And then, , Vidya - his next door neighbour - teaches him how to smile. He learns both skills with ease. But, we know that he is better at the former one. Satya has mind and Bhikhu has power. Together they rule Mumbai Underworld. At this moment, we see one of the best shot of the movie, when Bhikhu stands on a rock, facing the Mumbai city and says Mumbai ka don kaun??.. And we say Bhikhu Matre...!
Some of the dialogues from this movie are, although simple, picturized and timely presented in such a way that they have very sharp effect on the audiance. For example, ’Ek jaayega, to sab jaayenge’, ’Mauka sabhi ko milta hai..’, ’Karna hai..., to karna hai..’, ’Kasai bhi bakra tabhi kaatataa hai jab log use khaate hai’ to list a few.
He’re some other master-shots from the movie:
Satya gets trapped inside a theater and he finds an intelligent but cruel way to escape.
Bhau shoots and kills Bhikhu. Boom! Shocking!
Satya attacks a ’hafta vasooli wala’ guy with a razor. We see a glance of Satya’s anger for the first time in the movie.
The fight between Bhikhu and his wife.
Satya’s first murder.
The ’Ganpati Visarjan’ scene, when Satya kills Bhau in front of his bodyguards.
Kallu mama kills the vakeel (Makarand Deshpande). We don’t see the killing, but just the dead body on the ground.
The sole survivor of Bhikhu Matre team - the guy who never smiles - sees the headlines in the newspaper, and panics.
The whole sequence when Satya dies in front of her love - Vidya. Very well executed and touching scene.
The Mood of Satya composed by Sandeep Chowta is one of my favourite ’movie theme’ of all time. Mr. Varma once said that Sandeep Chowta understood the theme of this movie more than himself. He captured the Mood of Satya amazingly. The score has thrill and pity mingled with each other with such an ease. I don’t know if Sandeep Chowta had copied this piece (I hope not) from someone, but if not, then this is one of his best work so far, imho.
All the characters in this movie are very well defined and materialized on screen. When we see Chakravorthy in this movie, he’s not Chakravorthy, he is Satya. We know him as Satya. Few movies have defined the characters so well that we remember these chatacters by their names in the movies. [Like all characters in Sholay, Munna in Rangeela]. Manoj Vajpayee has acted his role of Bhikhu brilliantly. The way he speaks, dances, walks, and does his business, we sometimes wonder if he really IS a don, , you know what I mean? Urmila looks so simple, charming and innocent in her role as Vidya. Shefali Chaaya (as Bhikhu’s wife), Makarnad Deshpande(as ??), Paresh Rawal (as Commissioner), Shaurabh Shukla (as Kallu mama), Govind Namdev (as Bhau), Aditya Shrivastava (as Inspector Khandelkar) and even the side actors have acted very well in this movie.
Satya was a trend setter movie. It has inspired many movies in recent years, and I bet it will keep on inspiring many movies in future. Ram Gopal Varma had put so much effort in making this movie. Rumours had it that he interviewed some underworld people for understanding their modus operandi. Hats off to Ram Gopal Varma. This movie bagged 6 Filmfare awards in different categories in 1998.
A great movie from a great director.