Good Police Good Criminal – Ek Film ka Superhit Formula
Good Police – Good Criminal. That’s one of my favorite plot in movies. That is a movie about policeman trying to catch a clever criminal. In theses movie it was not necessary that the police had to be a police. He can be CBI, CID, retired cop, etc. And the criminal should be a heroic character. But both the Police and the criminal should be given equal importance and the audience must love both of them.
The first movie that I watched in this genre was “Tamacha”. I watched this movie only once. But it had inspired me a lot that I wanted to be either a smuggler or a police when I grow up. It was about Jeetendra and Rajnikanth. Both of them were best friends when they were in school. They both won they first prize in all the competitions. They couldn’t defeat each other and nobody else could defeat them. But both got separated and destiny made them enemies. Rajnikanth became smuggler and Jeetendra a CBI officer. Till the end both never realizes that they were old friends. There good chases in the movie that are necessary in a Police Chor movie. They both used Bamboo sticks to jump on bulildings, pole vault type. I wanted to learn that sport. And I got more interested in that sport during while watching Sergi Bubka in the Olympics that year. But I never learnt it. I just kept on practicing it using the mopsticks in my house. There was another actor in that movie that I liked a lot. He was Sumeet Saigal who was Rajnikanth’s brother in the movie. There was scene where Sumeet was trying to stop Rajnikanth from going somewhere. Don’t remember why. I think it was because there was a bomb in the car. But Rajni won’t stop and dragged Sumeet who has holding the front car door. My sister and me were too involved in the film that we were shouting “ Stop the car…. Stop the car…” Don’t remember much of the movie. But I do remember that I enjoyed watching it and telling the story to my friends at school.
Most of the movies of this genre were successful. It is very interesting to seen the criminal escaping from the police and foiling their plans. It is also very interesting to see the honesty and determination of the police to catch them. If there are any sentiments between them it would be more interesting. For eg Deewar, Andha Kanoon where the Police and the criminal were siblings. Tamacha where they were old friends. Aakhree Rasta where they are father and son. In these movies the positive side of the criminal is shown. The recent Hindi movies of this type were the Dhoom 1 & 2.
Chases, dialogues between the police and the criminal, execution of the crime are the highlight points of these movies. Some of my favorite Police Criminal conflicts are Akshay Kumar-Sunil Shetty(Mohra) Hema Malini-Rajinikanth(Andha Kanoon), Mammooty-Mohanlal(Athiraatram) Jeetendra-Rajinikanth(Tamacha) Amitabh Bachchan-Amitabh Bachchan(Aakhree Rasta) Tom Hanks-Leornado Dicaprio(Catch Me If You Can), etc. While watching the movie you might love the criminal more. It may be an established actor who plays the criminal. And you never hate that actor when he does a crime.
Such movies might also encourage crime. When some people see a stylish, intelligent, strong criminal they might want to be like them. When I watched Tamacha I wanted to be a smuggler. After watching Dhoom 2 I have heard many children saying that they would like to be Mr A. So, parental guidance is necessary when children watch such movies. And sometimes grownups also need guidance.
And….. waiting for the next cops and robbers movie Dhoom 3.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Mmmm, will be thinking about this one all night, but the first that comes to mind that I love was Dombivli Fast…
You need more Good Cop Good Criminal obscure movies? Try watching “Ek Aur Ek Gyarah”… nope [-x not the David Dhawan – Sanjay Dutt – Govinda starrer… this one was Shashi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna in it… was made in the late 70s… I think my parents gave up on watching movies anymore after this one… they just couldn’t take it anymore.
Others in the list
Amjad Khan’s Chor Police… then there’s Faraar (Amitabh-Sanjeev Kumar)… sad to see that Vijay Anand made a crap like – Ram Balram (Dharmendra – Amitabh – Ajit)… lots more can’t remember right now…
This is an interesting topic and the movie has to draw a line between showing the criminal as good at his profession without glorifying it.
But how can you post this topic without mentioning Heat. Pacino and DeNiro. Greatness flows.
There are many Hindi movies with the Good Police Good Criminal plot. Most of them had the same story. Two brothers get separated when they are kids. One becomes a criminal. The other becomes a policeman. In the end they realize they are brothers and then Bhaiyya… Bhai… Maa…Bete…. In some films the criminal brother dies in the end saving his brother.
Another plot that has been repeated many times is that the Criminal brother paal pos karke looks after his younger brother and makes him a police officer. The police brother’s first assignment will be to catch his criminal brother. And then “Bhai aap apne aap ko Kanoon Ke Hawale Kardo”. The criminal brother has some more duties to fulfill. It maybe of taking revenge. The police brother tries to stop him and in the end after many chases and action the criminal brother dies or apne aap ko Kanoon ke Hawale karte hai.
There are some films in which the Policeman and the Criminal fall in love with the same girl.
If Bunty Aur Bubli was made in the 70’s it would have ended Pitaji…Bete…Mamaji….Munni…..
:d
Heat is probably the only movie with pacino and de niro….well godfather didnt hav them together….
@Arv. Yah I should have included “Heat” in the post. I loved the last scene in the runway.
Another Good Cop Good Criminal story I liked was in one episode in the Street Hawk series which I liked a lot. Street Hawk’s friend is hired to trap Street Hawk. Street Hawk does not know that it his friend that is making problem in the city. And the friend does not know the true identity of Street Hawk. In the end when the criminal friend know the true identity he saves his friend from being shot and gets himself killed. It was the most emotional episode of Street Hawk. Recently I knew that the person who played the role of the criminal friend was “George Clooney”.
Don-Amitabh.. one was hired by police and the other was a cool criminal