Vaastav- A sordid reality
In the underworld of Mumbai, there are some become gangsters out of choice, mesmerized by the flashy lifestyle, and there are some 
who become gangsters, because of circumstances, either extreme poverty or just a desire for survival. In a vast majority of the Bollywood movies, the hero becomes a gangster because of some circumstances, it could be childhood poverty( Deewar, Parinda), or a person fighting for rights of his own people( Nayakan), or a person who becomes a gangster just to survive( Satya). Vaastav is one such movie, which depicts the transformation of happy go lucky chawl guy, into a dreaded gangster and his eventual fall.
Vaastav is the story of Raghunath Namdev Shivalkar aka Raghu( Sanjay Dutt), who lives in a chawl with his parents, Namdev(Shivaji Satam), Shanta( Reema Lagoo), and his elder brother Vijay(Mohnish Behl). While Vijay is educated, Raghu is a drop out, hanging out with the chawl folks, and his close buddy Dedh Footiya( Sanjay Narvekar), whiling away his time. On the request of his father, he starts his own paav bhaaji stall along with his friend, and for some time is able to run it well. However in a fight with a customer, who refuses to pay him, Raghu accidentally kills him.
Unfortunately, the dead person, happens to be the brother of Fracture Bandya, a notorious gangster in the underworld, who is now after Raghu’s blood. Both Raghu and Dedh Footiya go into hiding to save themselves, and on the advice of their friend, S.I. Kishore Kadam( Deepak Tijori), they seek refuge with another gangster Vithal Kanya( Ashish Vidyarthi). Vithal is a rival of Fracture, and he takes this as an opportunity to settle scores with him. Taking the help of Suleiman Bhai( Paresh Rawal), who acts as a go between for both the gangs, he gets Fracture killed by Raghu. In the meanwhile, Vithal begins to use Raghu for his own purposes.
Within no time, Raghu becomes one of the dreaded gangsters in the city. He also gets protection, from the corrupt Home Minister, Babban Rao Kadam( Mohan Joshi), who in real, uses Raghu for his own dirty deeds. Raghu’s rise as a gangster comes at a huge cost. He is alienated from his family, with his mother, refusing to accept him and his deeds. He becomes an addict to charas, and a hot head not really caring about the consequences of his actions. In the mean, he also, frequents a prostitute Sonu( Namrata Shirodkar), and falls in love with her.
Vaastav was one of those movies, which i had walked in without much expectations. The promos were good, but Sanjay Dutt’s movies then were nothing to crow about, most of them sheer rubbish. And director Mahesh Manjrekar was an unknown quantity to me. But as i watched the movie, it just gripped me, it was unlike the standard Bollywood flick, and compared to the Swiss Alps Glossy romances, that flooded the screen, here was a movie that was gritty, realistic to the core. And what really clinched it for me was the climax. Vaastav had one of the most killer climaxes, i have ever seen. It was a climax, that just left me shell shocked, numb, at the sheer irony of it, the lines spoken by Reema Lagoo saying it all. The climax of Satya was depressing, but the climax of Vaastav was something else, it just hit me square in the face, totally unexpected.
But while the climax was one of the high points of Vaastav, there were many other things about it, that really made it so gripping. The characterization, was spot on. Generally used to seeing characters flit in and out of a movie, with no apparent purpose, here was a movie where every single character counted, even the minor ones. It was not just Raghu and Dedh Futiya, be it Raghu’s helpless parents, his cowardly elder brother, the sleazy Home Minister or Paresh Rawal’s Suleiman Bhai, every character seemed to fit in wonderfully with the character. Also after Satya, this was a movie, where every character stays with you in your public consciousness, be it Suleiman, Dedh Futiya or even Fracture Bandya. In fact for quite some time, Sanjay Narvekar was referred to as Dedh Futiya, so popular his character had become.
Again the central character of Raghu, is beautifully etched out. Manjrekar does not make him out to be a super hero, or larger than life character. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Raghu commits a murder for the first time, and he runs scared into a corner. As you see him helplessly cowering like a kid, weeping, scared to death, what you find is a total humanizing of the character. Raghu here is neither good nor bad, he is like any one, who becomes a gangster due to circumstances. But the director does not step away from showing here his negative side, as in his hot headed nature, his arrogant attitude, his belief in force for everything.
Also the way the director Mahesh Manjrekar depicts the relationship between Raghu and his parents, is totally realistic. Nothing more so than Reema Lagoo’s character. She hates her son getting into this mess, she blames him for the trouble. There is a scene, when Raghu’s father is hospitalized, after being injured in an attack on Raghu. Raghu threatens the doctor saying, that if something happens to his father, he would pay for it
And thats when Reema Lagoo, tells the doctor
“Doctor saab, maaf kijiye, mere bete ko yeh samajh main nahin aata ki goondagardi, har waqt nahin chalega, aap apna kaam kijiye”
That single line shows her disgust with his activities, and at the same time underscore the futility of the violence.
Manjrekar sticks to the grim, realistic nature of the chawl life, and the underworld, without glamorizing things. Even the dialogues, the accent have that distinct Mumbai chawl speak and the Marathi accent. It also helps that barring Sunjay Dutt, Deepak Tijori , Ashish Vidyarthi and Paresh Rawal, most of the other characters are Marathi themselves. Even the underworld lingo, “koka”, “peti” is used extensively.
The movie has many gripping scenes throughout. One great scene is when Raghu’s father asks him to quit the underworld, and he replies, he can’t and then breaks down.
Raghu and Dedh Futiya, hiding from the cops after they accidentally kill Fracture’s brother.
The inspector, questioning the inmates of the chawl about Raghu, and roughing them up.
Suleiman arranging the meeting between Raghu and Fracture, and Raghu killing him.
Fracture’s brother being ambushed by Raghu and his gang, and being shot dead.
The movie also shows a realistic depiction of the connection between the underworld, cops and police. As in when Raghu tells Vithal Kanya, that he wants to surrender to the cops, and the latter tells him, that every cop is sold out, and he would just be encountered. In another great scene, Kishore warns Raghu, that Kadam, is only using him to do his dirty work, and when need be, he would just distance himself from it. We see it here, when Kadam tells Raghu, that he is like his son, he trusts him, and when things go awry, washes his hands off him. Much the same way, many political leaders who are hand in glove with the underworld, but don’t let it come out. The reason Vaastav works is that director Mahesh Manjrekar pulls no punches here in displaying the sordid reality.
However where Vaastav just falls short of Satya is some of the commercial compromises. Like the song between Sunjay and Namrata in the Swiss Alps, and item number of Kashmira Shah, though he tries to integrate them with main story, it just sticks out. Also some of the scenes that show Raghu’s rise as a gangster seem rather hurriedly put. But again i feel most of them minor niggles, in a movie, that i rate as one of the best Gangster flicks made. Jatin Lalit’s songs are nothing great , but the background score is good. Also what i liked was the way the Sanskrit shlokas are recited in the background at key intervals.
Vaastav also works on some solid performances. Sanjay Narvekar is a revelation as Dedh Futiya, Raghu’s friend, wonderfully mixing up humuor, irony and tragedy. As Raghu’s helpless parents, Shivaji Satam and Reema Lagoo are brilliant. Reema generally is a good actress, but most of the times, ends up with totally mediocre roles, but here she is outstanding, especially in the climax scene, where her performance just overwhelms you. Paresh Rawal, in a short but crucial role, is again first rate as Suleiman Bhai. Mohan Joshi is effective as the crooked Minister, not going too over the top, while Deepak Tijori as Kishore and Namrata Shirodkar as Sonu, offer good support. It is as Raghu however that Sanjay Dutt, offers one of the finest performances of his career. I never was a big fan of Sunju Baba, but this performance was just mind blowing. His transition from a carefree hot headed youth to a dreaded gangster was brilliant. He is intense and searing, in the scenes showing him as a gangster and a drug addict. And yet when you see him in the climax, cowering, weeping like a kid, you feel sorry for him.
Vaastav however would also prove to be a kind of mill stone for both Sunju and Mahesh Manjrekar. Most of the movies post Vaastav, had Sunju Baba doing a redux of the same role, with movie makers wanting to capitalize on his Raghu Bhai image, before Munnabhai series again resurrected him to an extent. As for Mahesh Manjrekar, barring Astitva, later, none of his following movies were anything even remotely close to Vaastav, critically or commercially.
Tags: Ashish Vidyarthi, gangster movies, mahesh manjrekar, Namrata Shirodkar, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Dutt, Vaastav
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
Just like the relationship between Dutt and his parents, the relationship between Narvekar and his parents is also wonderful. Specially the scene where Dedh Footiya buys first bottle of ‘Inglis’ whiskey for his father.
Manjrekar’s depiction of Mumbaiya chawls is always very real. In fact, I have drafted a review of ‘Praan Jaaye par Shaan na Jaaye’ which was based on hardcore chawl-culture but just need to give it final touches and submit to iView!! Damn this laziness!!
Mahesh Manjrekar was in full form during that time giving us Vaastav and Astitva.I think till date this was Sanjay Dutt’s best role.He also got his only Filmfare for it.
a good adaptation of SCARFACE
Vaastav was simply brilliant & its Sanju’s Raghu that is more powerful than the more popular, Munnabhai..its his performance that gives the film immense repeat value other than the direction & characterisation as mentioned by u..personally I judge film by its repeat value & VAASTAV is one film that I watch almost everytime its on TV
as you said the climax is a killer and reema lago deserved an award for this…what a briliant perfromance from her ….if i am not wrong vastav had a sequel too called hatyar or something ….anyways vastav will remain one of the best gangster films up along with satya and company and parinda …
this is one of my most fav sanju baba movies. i love it more for sanju baba before he becomes bhai… especially when he yells “aye ramniklal bhadve dekh mera baap mereko maar raha hai”. Thanks a lot RS, great post!
@Ratnakar Sadasyula
awesome post man!!!!!!!!ur post brings back memories from the past.i remembered bunking school to catch the 12 pm show in a theatre…another gr8 post after oofcn…
@ Anindya – Vaastav was not sanju’s only filmfare award..but its his only award as an actor in lead role. He won the filmfare for Best actor in a comic role for Munna Bhai MBBS in 2004.
He is one of the finest actor of India.
He got following awards for Vaastav:-
Filmfare
Star screen
IIFA
the other awards in his kitty are:-
Filmfare – Vaastav (Best Actor) and Munna Bhai (Best actor in a comic role)
Star Screen – Vaastav (Best Actor) and Mmission Kashmir (Best supporting actor)
IIFA – Vaastav (best Actor)
Global Indian Film award – Lage raho munna bhai (Critic chioce)
Stardust star of the year – Munnai Bhai MBBS and Lage raho munna bhai (Best Actor)
Zee Cine award – Mission Kashmir (Zee premire choice) and Lage raho munna bhai (Best actor criti choice)
Bollywood Movie award – Kaante (Critic choice) and Lage raho munna bhai (Most sensational Actor)
BFJA award (Bengal Film Journalist award) – munna bhai MBBS.
~Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale
@ Tejas
Yeah valid point raised there, Mahesh does seem to have a feeling for the chawl life. Praan Jaaye… had a good screenplay, but i think Sanjay Jha’s direction was kinda inconsistent. Some scenes good, others not too great. Also Aman Verma spoilt it for me with his hamming. It was a good theme, and better treatment cud have made it a cult classic.
@ Anindya
Yes Sunju Baba’s performance was the high point, but to credit of Mahesh he does not allow other actors to be dwarfed by Sunju’s presence. And as Ashu pointed out, Sunju Baba did end up with a couple of awards too. For me Sanjay Dutt, was one person, who cud have taken AB’s position, he had everything going for him, the height, the intensity but he just screwed his career up big time.
@ Krishna
Dont think it can be classified as a Scarface adaptation, except those scenes showing Sunju using drugs. For me Agneepath was more closer to Scarface.
@ NRS
yeah this is one of those movies, that i can watch any number of times without getting bored. It has everything going for me, characterization, dialogues, good performances. I would rate this as Sunju Baba’s best performance, and wud place Raghu Bhai right up there with Bhiku Mhatre(Satya) and Velu Naicker(Nayakan) when it comes to memorable gangster characters.
@ Anand
Yes wud rate Vaastav right there along with Satya, Nayakan, Company when it comes to gangster flicks. Yeah Hatyaar was a sequel, but nowhere as good as Vaastav. It was a disappointment for me. Reema Lagoo, was nominated but did not get the award for it. She is a talented actress, but very rarely gets a good role.
@ Magik
Sunju was great in the pre gangster phase also. Especially as a happy go lucky tapori kind, and also that scene, when he breaks down after committing his first murder.
@ Abdul
Thanks for the comment.
@ RS
Nice post, felt like a flashback. But u know, even then(i was in 9th grade) i somehow felt SATYA was on a completely different level. But one just cant compare the two films.
I still remember once going to my dad’s where his collegaues weretalking about these two movies. Being the youngest in the group, everyone was at least 15 yrs elder to me, i was just listening to other people’s comment. I came across some unique insights:-
1) People who had seen Godfather, liked Satya
2)Thos who had spent their younger days in chawl liked Vaastav
3)People who were artistic liked Satya
4) Those who spoke loudly and were short tempered liked Vaastav
5) Calm, calculative guys liked Satya
6) Females Loved Satya
It was a very random samling method, but i still guess it holds true.
Hmm SKS thats an interesting sample. But again artistically i did not find Vaastav inferior to Satya, i mean both movies were brutal, violent and hard hitting.
Well i am not from a chawl, and people say i am the calm, calculative guy( though i can be short tempered at times), but i liked both Vaastav and Satya.
Females loved Satya, thats news to me, most of the female friends i knew hated violent flicks, preferring the more candy floss Swiss Alps stuff.
But actually in a way this was true of the comparison vis a vis Godfather and Scarface( another of my favorites).
A vast majority of the Scarface fans come from the non Western world, Latin America, Southern Asia, the Arab world compared to Godfather fans. Godfather spoke in a very sophisticated language, while Pacino’s over the top act, which was panned by critics in the West, was lapped up by people in the Non Western regions.
Also one more thing i noticed, i am an active member of the Al Pacino community on Orkut, and i found that an overwhelming majority of his fans are from India, Pakistan, Iran, the Arab world, Latin America, and a majority of them again became fans after Scarface. Quite interesting.
Regarding the point u raised about chawl life, well i guess it makes sense. See Satya is the story of a faceless outsider, who comes from some where, and gets drawn into the underworld.
Raghu Bhai, on the other hand, was a pukka chawl Mumbaikar, and also the Marathi thing helped. So more people in Mumbai and Maharashtra wud have identified with Vaastav.
Satya on the other hand, did well in Mumbai, Hyderabad region, and most of the South.
@ RS – U hit the nail on the head about the chawl life.
But even i was suprised, when many of the women i knew liked Vaastav more.
May be because Vaastav was predictable and it fitted in the bracket of “Hindi Movie”. Till the end Sanju was the hero but the politician and others were villians.
While Satya, there was no hero or villian.It was more like a mirror of the Mumbai of 99.
SKS, i would not consider Sunju as a hero in conventional sense. In many ways, Raghu defies the average conventional hero. In the climax, the way he behaves like a frightened insecure kid, cowering about, was certainly not heroic. In fact very rarely u see a Hindi movie hero behaving that way.
Again in the scene, when he meet Namrata Shirodkar for the first time, he is shy, unsure, nervous, pretty much unlike the hero.
Even when he commits his first murder, he is not proud about it, he is shit scared, afraid, and only later he becomes the hot headed gangster. Also he is not apologetic about what he is doing, nor does he justify it saying its because of bad society.
Again while the story might have been predictable, the way Manjrekar captures it is certainly not. I was certainly shocked numb by the climax, rarely had i expected to see such a climax in a Bollywood movie.
In fact i wud place Pacino’s portrayals in Godfather and Scarface as somewhat more heroic kind.
Vaastav is a film – Satya is CINEMA
RS, Sanju wasnt a proverbial hero, but what i meant was that crowd would certainly cheer him on as they would do 4 AB in Deewar.
But that wasnt the case in Satya.
And again the chawl poin, charatcer of Bhikhu Mhatre was a typical Marathi Chawl Goon.But somehow the brutality and rawness of his character was missing in Sanju’s.
I was watching Sanjay dutts interview the other day ..i guess it was on that Sajid khans show….so sajid asked him which is that one role that he wants to do …and SD instantly replied Al pacino’s in scarface ..
Hmm SKS, for me both the characters seemed equally brutal, but i guess people in Mumbai wud have a better idea than me.
I think Vaastav was a more commercial version of Satya.
Also even in Satya, people cheered for Bhiku Mhatre, in fact for many Bhiku was the real hero, compared to Satya. And that is coz he had the more aggressive, hot blooded role.
Godfather is a better movie than Scarface, but people cheer more for Tony Montana, than Michael Corleone, coz they feel connected to the former more.
@ Anand-20
Well for me i cant think of any one else other than Sunju who can do the desi version of Tony Montana. Yes AB did it in Agneepath, but Vijay Dinanath Chavan, for me was still somewhat refined version of Tony Montana.
BTW i felt Sunju’s performance as the blind ex Army officer in Dushman was quite influenced by Pacino’s in Scent of a Woman.
I was actually doing a random sampling of the fans of Al Pacino, from his fan page in Facebook, found something interesting
1) Quite a lot of them from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
2) Huge number from the Arab world, Turkey
3) In Europe, most of his fans were from Italy or Eastern Europe.
4) Not surprisingly a solid chunk of his fan base is from Latin America. I have some Latino friends who are just crazy about Pacino.
It seems Pacino has more fans outside the US than in US, and even in the US his fan base seems more from the Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Indians than the average White person.
Quite interesting.
Vaastav’s been one of my favorites since the first time I saw it. What repeat value! I still remember I had recorded it on my VCR when it was showing on Sony and I must’ve watched it sooo many times. I love how the movie phases from laid back and funny to a more serious tone without boring the viewer.
This weekend, I was watching Slumdog Millionaire and Meerabai Not Out (just aise hi!) and I just kept wondering whatever happened to Mahesh Manjrekar the director. Last I heard he was supposed to be making a film called The Struggler, which even had trailers if I’m not wrong.
Mahesh Manjrekar is another lost talent. His understanding of the Bombay milieu was terrific. Best matched by only RGV. And his movies were very content driven. I enjoyed his Kurukshetra also quite a bit, despite the irritating bits of the TV justice show laid on top of it. His Laloo Prasad Yadav while being very slapstick had its fun moments too. Another director ruined by association of Sanjay Gupta (Hanslal Mehta being the other one!)
@SKS
“Vaastav is a film – Satya is CINEMA”
…..agjactly.