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The Top 75 Hindi Films of the Decade
In the fifth part of this special series, Raja Sen lists the best films of the decade that are a must watch! Here's a look at his next batch of movies to cherish.
Click here for the first, second, third and fourth part of the series. Feel free to send in your list as well!
Murder
Cast: Mallika Sherawat, Emraan Hashmi, Ashmit Patel.
All hail Mallika Sherawat for taking out the innuendo and bringing up actual raunchiness. Anurag Basu's Murder remains a very watchable reworking of A Perfect Murder, featuring Emraan Hashmi and Mallika in an extramarital affair.
The steaminess is real and the chemistry is more than suggested, and it is certainly a film that broke the shackles.
Matrubhoomi
Cast: Tulip Joshi, Sudhir Pandey, Sushant Singh, Aditya Srivastav
Manish Jha's film on female infanticide hits you right between the eyes.
A strong drama about a village so committed to the cause of the male child that several generations of infanticide have led to it being severely imbalanced.
Now it is only populated by men, and this is the story of a woman forcibly married to five brothers.
Haasil
Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Hrishita Bhatt, Irfan Khan, Ashutosh Rana
Director Tigmanshu Dhulia is a top-notch dialogue writer, and this is what drives most of his own Haasil, a film about a pair of college lovers torn apart by campus politics and gang warfare.
Irrfan Khan is striking as the despicable Rannvijay Singh, and Dhulia's film ends up packing quite an impressive punch.
Main Hoon Na
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Sushmita Sen, Suniel Shetty, Zayed Khan, Amrita Rao, Kabir Bedi
First films don't get much more entertaining than Farah Khan's Main Hoon Na, a throwback to Manmohan Desai's cinema featuring Shah Rukh Khan as an armyman posing as a college student, only to fall in love with chemistry teacher Sushmita Sen.
There is much good-natured spoofing and the end result is a film that celebrates the carnival aspects of Bollywood with extreme warmth.
Chandni Bar
Cast: Tabu, Atul Kulkarni, Rajpal Yadav, Ananya Khare, Vishal Thakkar, Minakshi Sahani
Before Madhur Bhandarkar started taking on soft targets, he made this gritty film about the Mumbai dancebar circuit.
It isn't a complete triumph but the film definitely has its moments, mostly conjured up by the stunning powerhouse of talent that is Tabu.
Dor
Cast: Ayesha Takia, Gul Panag, Shreyas Talpade, Girish Karnad, Uttara Bhavkar, Prateeksha Lonkar
Nagesh Kukunoor's take on Kamal's Perumazhakkalam was a night and day remake, the glorious melancholia of the original film set in the Kerala rains here replaced by scorching Rajasthan sun.
The two strong female protagonists stayed the same, here played by a fabulous Ayesha Takia and solid Gul Panag, but there is added jollity with Shreyas Talpade's incessant talking. Above all, an optimistic film.
Legend Of Bhagat Singh
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sushant Singh
The early part of the decade was a peculiar time for Bhagat Singh, the freedom fighter biopic'd all over the place.
The best of the Hindi takes, however, was this sepiatoned sweeping drama by Rajkumar Santoshi, featuring Ajay Devgan as Bhagat Singh and Sushant Singh as Sukhdev.
Gangajal
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Gracy Singh, Mohan Agashe, Mukesh Tiwari, Akhilendra Mishra, Mohan Joshi, Yashpal Sharma
Prakash Jha's known for earthen drama, and this film set in Bihar is one of his triumphs.
Ajay Devgan stars as SP Amit Kumar, taking on local politicians in this film that echoes the 1980 Bhagalpur blindings, when police blinded undertrials by pouring acid into their eyes.
Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na
Cast: Imran Khan, Genelia D'Souza, Prateek Babbar
Screenwriter Abbas Tyrewala went back to the basics for his first film. He borrowed a narrative structure from Forget Paris, and told the most conventional rom-com story of all: that of best friends eventually discovering they're in love.
Sure thing, but he did it with a great ensemble -- Genelia D'Souza and Prateik Babbar were the standouts -- and wrote everything, including the cameos, in such perfect pitch that the end result is a romcom that got it impressively right. And that's bloody rare.
Ab Tak Chhappan
Cast: Nana Patekar, Revathi
Shimit Amin's directorial debut is quite possibly the tightest thing to come out of Ram Gopal Varma's factory banner this decade.
Nana Patekar stars as 'encounter specialist' police inspector Sadhu Agashe, and the film's title refers to his kill count of 56 -- so far.
The film manages to be both a compelling cop drama as well as a character study of Patekar's protagonist, and Amin shows incredible maturity straight off the bat. A riveting watch.