The age-old theme, good versus evil

The age-old theme, good versus evil
MEETA BHATTI

After Bollywood frittering away all its ideas of love, devotion, hatred and crime, one peerless backdrop it has found till date is in Mumbai's underworld. Done to death, it's now a matter of film-makers handling the machination. And trust Govind Nihalani to knob it intelligently.

The fibre of the film is a construction empire that is rooted in violent and illicit activities. Coming to the thread, Ishaan (Ajay Devgan) and father Nahar Singh (Amrish Puri) are Thakshaks quivers from which arrows could either be fired for the right or the wrong to Jodhabhai and his grandson Sunny (Rahul Bose). While Nahar Singh has resigned to firing for the wrong for the sake of unwavering devotion to the family -- and he believes in its uprightness too, Ishaan has a genuine righteous streak.

Sharing a strong bond with Sunny, his controlled strength is an anchor to his friend's recklessly violent nature. One of the strongest scenes is Sunny mocking Pandit Nehru's `tryst with destiny' and using his newly acquired gun tokill an old man who refuses to be clubbed with the lesser mortals.

And then an idealistic woman Suman Dev (Tabu) opens up a new world. In fact, the poesy romance between the two opens the film and then it moves on to the man torn between loyalty to his father and friend and his love. This is a regular yet `it's different' good vs evil drama with piecemeal domination of the former over the latter. Not needful of reading between the lines, the story is written on Ajay Devgan's face the dilemma that eats into his heart, while he gets drawn deeper into the world of crime.

The story takes a turn with the murder of a family for land-grabbing. Only one of them Anjali (Loveleen Mishra) survives to recognise the man she unmasked during the scuffle Ishaan. Nihalani's script doesn't try to perfect the `removing of all evidence' for one simple reason: Jodhabhai needn't fear cops for six months. Consequently, Ishaan is trapped but can't decide which way to go. Till he finally unravels the truth.

Nihalani'sflawless script makes a run-of-the-mill subject worth serious thought. This is interspersed with excellent A R Rahman compositions. The director has wasted Tabu and has gone wrong again with the unbendable Nethra Raghuraman. She is literally stiff in all the three dialogues and three songs. But the film belongs to Ajay Devgan and Rahul Bose. Especially Bose, who has played the barbarous character admirably. A piece of advice: a commercial film doesn't mean six songs.