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Bollywood turns to cops, not robbers
SUBHASH K JHA
IANS[ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 01, 2002 03:50:01 PM ]
MUMBAI: The coming year is about to be snowed under Bollywood films on the police force. Producer Feroz Nadiadwala has launched his cop flick Aan with Shatrughan Sinha, Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Raveena Tandon.
Directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, this slick movie is supposed to be partially inspired by Brian de Palma's Oscar-winning film The Untouchables.
Almost simultaneously, producer Keshu Ramsay has announced a film on police.
Entitled Khaki, the film directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi, features Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Akshaye Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan who opted out of Aan due to thematic similarities between the two films.
But, says Akshay: "Though both are about cops, I don't think Khaki and Aan are in any way similar. I play very different police officers in both."
"I've done about a dozen films as a cop. In fact I used to carry a police uniform with me," jokes Akshay.
"But the new films are different. For the first time in Aan I play an authentic cop. I've even cropped my hair to a crew cut for the role."
Govind Nihalani, who made Ardh Satya, one of the most authentic films about the police, is all set to make another flick on the force featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Om Puri and probably Kareena Kapoor.
And if that isn't enough, there's Prakash Jha with a compassionate look at the police force.
Says the award-winning director of Damul and Mrityudand: "The coming together of many films on the police force in 2003 is just a coincidence."
"I've been working on my subject entitled 'Ganga Jal' for almost 10 years. I began to think seriously about the subject after the Bhagalpur blindings (in the early 1980s). The entire town of Bhagalpur came forward to support the policemen accused of blinding criminals. That set me thinking."
"We must stop looking at the police force as white and mostly black. If the police are black, then the social order must also be black. In Gujarat, the police force and social order are almost co-conspirators in communal crimes.
"Invariably, the police force is an extension of society and needs to be evaluated in that perspective. In my film, Ajay Devgan plays a cop who gets sucked into a crisis. It's a very compassionate story of a law enforcer's dilemma."
Jha will produce the film for a company called Entertainment 1.
"I've gone through eight drafts of the screenplay in the last one year. We start shooting on January 15 and finish in March."
Ganga Jal will probably be the first major film on the police to be released next year. The fate of the other big-budgeted films on the khaki theme may depend to a large extent on Jha's film.
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