Grateful Dread

Seema Pant

Back in 1965 Manoj Kumar told us the story about three revolutionaries --- Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Raj Guru --- who gave up their lives for the country.

That was Shaheed. (Currently at least three filmmakers are making a film on the same subject.)

Now in 2002, director Rajan Johri tells us about three revolutionaries --- Bhagat Pandey, Sukhdev Singh and Raj Guru --- but that's where the similarity ends. Ansh - The Deadly Part is not about the struggle for an independent India but freedom from corruption mostly at the hands of politicians.

DCP Bhagat Pandey an honest IPS officer moves to Mumbai on one of his frequent transfers.

Inspector Sukhdev Singh earns a jail term for his honesty.

Raj Guru becomes a gangster, thanks to the corrupt system.

Then there is the rival gang, Govind Edda (Sayaji Shinde) and Babu Bakshi (Milind Gunaji), thriving under the patronage of corrupt politicians.

Put these together, stir well and you have Ansh - The Deadly Part.

While DCP Bhagat Pandey (Om Puri) remains honest to his profession throughout the film, Sukhdev Singh (Ashutosh Rana), disgusted with the system, decides to take the law in his hands (after he is proved innocent with the help of DCP Bhagat Pandey).

Raj Guru (Abbas) takes over from the large-hearted underworld don Dawoo (Ashish Vidyarthi), with Munna Bhai (Rajat Bedi) as his right hand man.

Of course, circumstances bring all three together for the hurried climax.

To bring in the mandatory romance and songs, there are Sharbani Mukherjee as Shweta --- a bar dancer who Raj Guru saves from the clutches of the evil Govind Edda --- and Shama Sikander as Kusum (Raj Guru sacrifices his love for her after he takes over from Dawoo).

After having worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films, southern star Abbas makes his debut in Bollywood with Ansh. He had earlier made an appearance on the Hindi screen with Duniya Dilwalon Ki, a dubbed version of his Tamil film Kadhal Desam.

Unfortunately for Abbas, Ansh is not a great launch film. It is just another masala potboiler on crime and corruption (the Mithun Chakraborty and Dharmendra starrers that we have had such an overdose of) that has no novelty whatsoever --- despite boasting of names like Om Puri, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sayaji Shinde and Ashutosh Rana. They all play their parts well, but that's about it.

Some technical finesse and a tighter script could have helped the film.

The music doesn't help matters either. Nadeem-Shravan have clearly not spent much effort in composing the score.

The only person who seems to have made some kind of progress with this film is writer-director Rajan Johri. His debut film, the Puru Raajkumar starrer Uljhan, had only managed to secure a DVD release.

Ansh, at least, has its moment in the cinema sun. How long it will stay there is anybody's guess.