''Nayak: The Real Hero'' () is a 2001 Indian
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
-language
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
action film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include l ...
directed by
S. Shankar
Shankar Shanmugam (born 17 August 1963), credited as S. Shankar or his mononym Shankar, is an Indian filmmaker who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He is one of the most prolific and highest paid film directors in India. His films typicall ...
and produced by
A. M. Rathnam under the Sri Surya Movies banner. The film stars
Anil Kapoor
Anil Kapoor (born 24 December 1956) is an Indian actor and producer who works primarily in Hindi films, besides television and international films and television. In a career spanning over 40 years as an actor and since 2005 as a producer, Kapo ...
, with
Rani Mukerji,
Amrish Puri
Amrish Puri (22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005) was an Indian actor, who was one of the most notable and important figures in Indian cinema and Theatre. He acted in more than 450 films, established himself as one of the most popular actor ...
,
Paresh Rawal, and
Johnny Lever
Johnny Lever (born John Prakash Rao Janumala; 14 August 1957) is an Indian actor and popular comedian who is known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is one of the first stand-up comedians in India. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, in ...
playing supporting roles. A remake of Shankar's 1999
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
-language film ''
Mudhalvan
''Mudhalvan'' () is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language political action thriller film produced by R. Madhesh and S. Shankar, written and directed by Shankar. The film stars Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran while Vadivelu and Manivannan appear in ...
'', it focuses on Shivaji Rao Gaekwad (Kapoor), a television cameraman and, later, television presenter, who accidentally hears and records the conversation between the police with the
Chief Minister of Maharashtra Balraj Chauhan (Puri) to take an indifferent stand during riots triggered by a fight between college students and a bus driver. While interviewing Chauhan about the issues, Shivaji is challenged to take over his job for a day.
''Nayak'' was announced in June 2000 and marked the first Hindi-language directorial venture of Shankar. The soundtrack was composed by
A. R. Rahman, with lyrics that were written by
Anand Bakshi. Filming was done by
K. V. Anand
Karimanal Venkatesan Anand (30 October 1966 30 April 2021) was an Indian cinematographer, film director and photojournalist, worked mainly in the Tamil film industry. After a short period as a journalist, he became a cinematographer in the e ...
, taking place in more than 100 locations across India. The film was released on 7 September 2001. A commercial failure, it grossed at the box office against the total production and marketing cost of . It was opened to mixed reviews from critics, some of whom applauded the storyline, the performances(particularly Kapoor, Puri and Rawal), Shankar's direction and the movie's themes and social message but criticised its lengthy duration, editing, pace and special effects. Through repeated television airings, Nayak has since become a
cult classic
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
.
Plot
Shivaji Rao Gaekwad is an ambitious television cameraman, working for QTV along with his friend Topi. While on his job, Rao is assigned to record riots triggered by a fight between college students and a bus driver and accidentally records a conversation in which the
Chief Minister of Maharashtra Balraj Chauhan takes an indifferent stand, so as not to lose his voter base. In the riots, Shivaji saves the life of one of the college students there, and it is recorded by Topi. Because of his actions, Shivaji is promoted as the senior television presenter.
Meanwhile, due to police inaction, there is loss of life and damage to property. Explaining his actions, Chauhan later agrees to do a live interview with Shivaji, during which Rao raises these issues and broadcasts the conversation he has recorded. In response to Shivaji's allegations about the mismanagement by his government, Balraj redirects the question by saying that his job is not easy. He challenges Shivaji to be the Chief Minister for a day to experience those problems himself. Shivaji reluctantly accepts the challenge.
Assisted by Bansal, Shivaji handles issues that affect the populace every day. He manages appropriate housing and employment for the needy, and he suspends inefficient and corrupt government officials. As the last act of the day, Rao has Chauhan arrested, as the latter is the root cause of all the corruption. Later, Chauhan posts bail and leaves jail, then passes an ordinance to nullify all orders passed by Shivaji. Insulted by Shivaji's success as well, Chauhan sends assassins after him, but they only destroy his house.
Shivaji falls in love with Manjari, a naïve, carefree villager whom he met when he was a cameraman. He asks her father to marry her, but her father refuses on grounds that Shivaji is not employed by the government. As a result, Shivaji begins preparing for the
Civil Services Examination. However, Bansal arrives and informs Rao that Shivaji's popularity has skyrocketed and that people want him to become the next Chief Minister. He is reluctant at first, but when Chauhan's henchmen vandalise QTV premises to intimidate him, and the people show their support by thronging to his place in huge numbers, he agrees to do so.
In the ensuing state elections, Shivaji wins by a vast majority. Chauhan's political allies desert him, causing his defeat. Manjari's father, angered by Shivaji's decision because he believes that it will make Shivaji careless of Manjari, refuses to let his daughter marry him. On becoming the Chief Minister, Shivaji effects many improvements and quickly becomes an idol in the people's eyes. However, his growing popularity is threatened continuously by Chauhan who uses his henchmen to try to kill him or tarnish his image as a public hero. After a failed attempt on Shivaji's life by hiring an assassin, a bomb is detonated at his home, killing his parents.
In a final attempt, Chauhan orders Pandurang to cause bomb explosions in various parts of the city. Accidentally, a priest hears that a few men are planning to detonate bombs and notifies Shivaji's office via the "complaint box", which was created by Shivaji to collect letters from the public about their complaints. Pandurang is arrested and, under tactical inquiry by Shivaji and his secretary, discloses the location of the four bombs. A squad is able to defuse three bombs, but the fourth explodes—without injuring anyone—before they could reach it.
Chauhan uses this success against Shivaji by blaming him for the bomb. Seeing no way out, Shivaji summons Chauhan to the secretariat and creates a situation such that it would seem as if Chauhan was there to shoot Shivaji but failed. To do so, Shivaji takes up a gun, points it to his arm, shoots himself on purpose, and then hands over the gun to Chauhan. The enraged Chauhan attempts to shoot Shivaji, but his shot misses. The security guards shoot down Chauhan and kill him. Apart from that, Manjari's father also comes to realise that Shivaji is a great man who sees duty before everything else and allows Manjari to marry him. The film ends with the state developing under the governance of Shivaji.
Cast
*
Anil Kapoor
Anil Kapoor (born 24 December 1956) is an Indian actor and producer who works primarily in Hindi films, besides television and international films and television. In a career spanning over 40 years as an actor and since 2005 as a producer, Kapo ...
as Shivaji Rao Gaekwad
*
Rani Mukerji as Manjari Ghatge
*
Amrish Puri
Amrish Puri (22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005) was an Indian actor, who was one of the most notable and important figures in Indian cinema and Theatre. He acted in more than 450 films, established himself as one of the most popular actor ...
as Balraj Chauhan
*
Paresh Rawal as Bansal Shroff
*
Johnny Lever
Johnny Lever (born John Prakash Rao Janumala; 14 August 1957) is an Indian actor and popular comedian who is known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is one of the first stand-up comedians in India. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, in ...
as Topi
*
Pooja Batra
Pooja Batra Shah (born 27 October) is an Indian-American actress and model who primarily works in Hindi films. She was crowned Femina Miss India International in 1993.
Early life and background
Batra was born on 27 October to Ravi Batra, an a ...
as Laila
*
Saurabh Shukla
Saurabh Shukla (born 5 March 1963) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, and film director who works in Hindi and a few Tamil and Telugu films. He is famous for his roles in ''Satya'' (1998), '' Nayak: The Real Hero'' (2001), '' Yuva'' (2004), ''L ...
as Pandurang
*
Shivaji Satam
Shivaji Satam (born 21 April 1950), is an Indian television and film actor. He is best known for his role as ACP Pradyuman on the TV series '' C.I.D.'' on SET India. A former bank official and Inspection Officer, he has appeared in Hindi and ...
as Manjari's father
*
Raja Krishnamoorthy
Raja Krishnamoorthy, popularly known as Kitty is an Indian director, screenwriter and actor, primarily working in the Tamil film industry with a few films in Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi cinema. He has directed films like '' Dasarathan'' ( ...
as Mr. Gaekwad
*
Neena Kulkarni
Neena Kulkarni (''neena'' Joshi) is an Indian actress. She began her acting career in the 1970s on the Marathi professional stage and Hindi experimental stage, along with fashion shows and modelling simultaneously. She met Pt Satyadev Dubey, h ...
as Mrs. Gaekwad
Ahmed Khan and
Sushmita Sen
Sushmita Sen (born 19 November 1975) is an Indian actress, model and the winner of the Miss Universe 1994 pageant. She is the first Indian to win the Miss Universe pageant. She was previously crowned Femina Miss India 1994 at the age of 18. A ...
made special appearances in the song "Shakalaka Baby".
Production
''Nayak: The Real Hero'' serves as a remake of
S. Shankar
Shankar Shanmugam (born 17 August 1963), credited as S. Shankar or his mononym Shankar, is an Indian filmmaker who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He is one of the most prolific and highest paid film directors in India. His films typicall ...
's 1999
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
-language film ''
Mudhalvan
''Mudhalvan'' () is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language political action thriller film produced by R. Madhesh and S. Shankar, written and directed by Shankar. The film stars Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran while Vadivelu and Manivannan appear in ...
'', and was the director's first venture in
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
. The debut, announced in June 2000, was produced by
A. M. Rathnam under the banner of Sri Surya Movies (his second
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
film after that of ''Tejasvini'', released in 1994),
and addressed the issue of
corruption in India
Corruption in India is an issue which affects economy of central, state and local government agencies in many ways. Corruption is blamed for stunting the economy of India. A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005 recorded that ...
. According to Shankar, he was motivated to remake ''Mudhalvan'' in Hindi because of its subject and did several changes to the original story. In an interview with ''
Filmfare'' in August 2001, he said that he believed that the topic is well known among Indian people.
Anurag Kashyap wrote the dialogue.
The role of Shivaji was originally going to be played by
Aamir Khan
Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...
, but Shankar did not cast him, explaining, "... the two of us faced a huge communication gap. His views about
'Mudhalvan''didn't match mine." The next actor suggested was
Shah Rukh Khan. However, he did not want to play the role after portraying a television presenter in his home production, ''
Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani
''Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani'' () is a 2000 Indian Hindi-language satirical film released by Dreamz Unlimited (now Red Chillies Entertainment). The producers derived the title from lines of the song "Mera Joota Hai Japani" from '' Shree 420'' ...
'' (2000). Shankar's final choice was Anil Kapoor, although he was initially reluctant to choose him for the part but changed his mind after finding him more suitable than the previous actors, noting his discipline.
When asked by the ''
Deccan Herald
''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Print ...
'' about his character as well as his experience during the production of the film, Kapoor said that it was one of his career's finest roles and called it an honour to work with Shankar. To prepare for the role, Kapoor underwent physical training for six or seven months, and watched many talk shows hosted by
Larry King
Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger; November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021) was an American television and radio host, whose awards included 2 Peabodys, an Emmy and 10 Cable ACE Awards. Over his career, he hosted over 50,000 interviews. ...
,
Prannoy Roy
Prannoy Lal Roy (born 15 October 1949) is an Indian economist, chartered accountant, psephologist, journalist and author. He is the former executive co-chairperson of NDTV and is considered to be one of its co-founders, along with his wife R ...
,
Rajat Sharma, and
Karan Thapar
Karan Thapar (born 5 November 1955) is an Indian journalist, news presenter and interviewer working with The Wire. Thapar was associated with CNN-IBN and hosted ''The Devil's Advocate'' and ''The Last Word''. He was also associated with India T ...
—later adopting their way of speaking. Nayak's character name was
Rajinikanth's real life name—Shivaji Rao Gaekwad—because Shankar made the script for ''Mudhalvan'' with Rajinikanth in his mind.
Shankar chose Rani Mukerji to fulfill the part of Manjari, a village girl who becomes the love interest of Kapoor's character. He cast Mukerji over
Manisha Koirala
Manisha Koirala (; born 16 August 1970) is a Nepalese actress who works in Indian films, predominantly in Hindi and Tamil films and has also worked in few Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Nepali and English films. Known for her work in both commerci ...
, who played the role in the original version, as he thought that Mukerji has the bubbly image he needed for the character.
Playing the type of role for the first time, the actress admitted that she saw resemblances between Manjari and herself, noting their vibrant along with uninhibited character, and described her collaboration with Kapoor as a "growing-up experience". Talking to a journalist from
Rediff.com
Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City.
, it had more than 300 e ...
, Mukerji revealed that she immediately agreed to star in the film after hearing the story from Kapoor, which she felt was "mindblowing". Shankar wanted her to portray the role in her own way, not copying what Koirala had done before. Ahmed Khan and Sushmita Sen made special appearances in the film.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...
was handled by
K. V. Anand
Karimanal Venkatesan Anand (30 October 1966 30 April 2021) was an Indian cinematographer, film director and photojournalist, worked mainly in the Tamil film industry. After a short period as a journalist, he became a cinematographer in the e ...
and took place in more than 100 locations in the states of
Maharashtra,
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
,
Karnataka
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
,
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
,
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
,
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...
, and
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
.
Thota Tharani
Thota Tharani is an Indian film art director and production designer who has predominantly worked in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam cinema and Bollywood. As of 2013, he has won two National Film Awards, two Filmfare Awards South and four Tamil ...
served as the art director, while
H. Sridhar was the sound designer.
A 22-day schedule in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
,
Pune
Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...
, and the cities in Tamil Nadu was started on 18 November 2000. To shoot the song "
Shakalaka Baby", Anand travelled to the United States to meet the filmmaker
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
and asked for his help. It was simultaneously shot with 34 cameras bought from the German manufacturer
Arri with a speed of 100
FPS, instead of 24, and made the film over-budgeted; consequently, Anand spoke of his regret to do the idea.
After filming ended, ''Nayak'' was edited by
B. Lenin and
V. T. Vijayan.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film was composed by
A. R. Rahman with lyrics from
Anand Bakshi.
The vocals were performed by
Udit Narayan Udit is an Indian masculine given name that may refer to:
* Udit Narayan, Bollywood playback singer
* Udit Narayan (politician) (born 1960), Fijian politician of Indian descent
* Udit Narayan Singh (1770–1835), Indian monarch
* Udit Patel (born ...
,
Kavita Krishnamurthy,
Vasundhara Das
Vasundhara Das (born 18 August 1977) is an Indian singer, musician and actress.
Vasundhara's films include ''Hey Ram'' (Tamil/Hindi), ''Monsoon Wedding'' (English), ''Citizen (film), Citizen'' (Tamil), ''Ravana Prabhu'' (Malayalam), ''Lankesh ...
,
Shiraz Uppal
Shiraz Uppal ( ur, شیراز اپل; born 29 January 1975) is a Pakistani singer, songwriter and music producer.
His popular songs are “Tu Kuja Man Kuja”, “Tera Te Mera”, "Raanjhanaa",“Mann Ja Ve”, “Roya Re”, Rabba", “Saiyan ...
,
Pravin Mani
Pravin Mani is an Indian musician who has been credited as singer and as composer in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and English films in India. He has been a long term associate with noted music director, A. R. Rahman, with recent collaborations in ...
,
Shankar Mahadevan
Shankar Mahadevan (born 3 March 1967) is an Indian singer and composer who is part of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio that writes music for Indian films.
Personal life and early career
Shankar Mahadevan was born in Chembur, Mumbai into a Tam ...
,
Alka Yagnik,
Sunidhi Chauhan,
Hans Raj Hans,
Abhijeet Bhattacharya
Abhijeet Bhattacharya (born 30 October 1958), better known as Abhijeet, is a Bollywood playback singer. Abhijeet has sung 6034 songs in over 1000 films.
Personal life
Abhijeet was born to a Kanpur-based Bengali businessman turned editor Dhir ...
,
Sanjeevani, and
Hariharan.
The soundtrack album was released at a special ceremony at the Hotel Regent in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
under the label of
T-Series, which bought the rights for . The album did not perform well commercially and, according to the film-trade website
Box Office India
Box Office India is an Indian film website. Its traffic ranking in India is 83,665 . A new Box Office India website went live on 20 January 2014.
About
Box Office India was launched on 10 June 2003. Its uses Whois privacy to anonymize its ow ...
, only 1.4 million units were sold.
Critically, the album was met with a poor reception from reviewers as well.
Sukanya Verma
Sukanya Verma is an Indian journalist and film critic. She has been the principal movie reviewer with web portal '' Rediff.com''. She has written a number of columns as a freelance writer for ''The Hindu''. She is a member of the Film Critics Gu ...
of
Rediff.com
Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City.
, it had more than 300 e ...
concluded that it was "quite a letdown" and "fails miserably", saying that she had expected more from Rahman. In an article for ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
'', Savitha Gautham found the album has the same composition to that from ''Mudhalvan'', but the lyrics are different. She noted that the songs have strong South Indian flavours, especially in "Saiyyan". Gautham declared "Shakalaka Baby" as the best song of the album, believing that it would be popular among Indian youth. Planet Bollywood's Avinash Ramchandani presumed Rahman's composition made the film "comes out to be a winner" and increased the audience's enthusiasm to Kapoor's and Mukerji's chemistry.
Release
Originally scheduled for release on 15 August 2001,
''Nayak'' premiered at theatres on 7 September and failed to attract a large enough audience. Made on a production and marketing cost of , the film opened on 280 screens across India and grossed on its first day. It collected after a week, and following its theatrical run in India. Abroad, the film also did not perform well and only had a total gross of $530,000. Summing the film's revenues from India and overseas, Box Office India estimated ''Nayak'' earned .
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
in the
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
widescreen format. Since 6 September 2019, the film is available for streaming on
Amazon Prime Video.
Critical response
Critics gave mixed reviews to ''Nayak'', praising the performances of Kapoor and Puri from the first-half but panning the special effects, which they attributed to the film's commercial failure.
Rediff.com's Sarita Tanwar wrote, "A fairly interesting plot, a commendable performance from the leading artiste, lavish production values and terrific pieces of action, ''Nayak: The Real Hero'' has all the ingredients that make a commercially viable film."
Taran Adarsh
Taran Adarsh (born 13 June 1965) is an Indian film critic and trade analyst. He is best known for giving trade figures and box office updates on social media.
Career
Taran Adarsh started his journalism career at the age of 15 with ''Trade Gui ...
from the entertainment portal
Bollywood Hungama
Bollywood Hungama (lit. "Bollywood Madness" in Hindi), previously known as IndiaFM (or IndiaFM.com), is a Bollywood entertainment website, owned by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, which acquired the website in 2000.
The website provide ...
gave the film one star, calling its second-half "weak". However, he took note of the "superb" dialogue of the film, mostly that are said by Paresh Rawal's character, while deemed Johnny Lever's comedic scenes were "flat". Moreover, Adarsh said that Mukerji was given with a role that did not give her screen time to talk and Pooja Batra's role was better than hers.
Saibal Chatterjee
Saibal Chatterjee is an Indian film critic, an author of a book on Gulzar, co-editor of a book on films; and a documentary scriptwriter. He was a columnist at BBC News, Business Standard, Hindustan Times and Financial Express. And a staff writer of ...
of the ''
Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
'', giving the same rating, described the film as "a patchwork that's neither pretty nor useful".
Ziya Us Salam claimed that Kapoor portrayed his part with "easy professionalism".
The critic and trade analyst
Komal Nahta
Komal Nahta (born 30 April 1964) is an Indian film trade analyst. Nahta is the publisher of "Film Information" and also a television show host. He is an anchor of the trade show ETC Bollywood Business on the Bollywood TV channels ETC and Zee Cinem ...
opined that it did not "have enough entertainment value", suggesting that the film's lengthy duration could be cut for ten minutes. Kapoor's performance got appreciation from Nahta, who thought he was "splendid", otherwise Nahta hoped that Shankar's direction "could have been much better. His inept handling becomes conspicuous as unrealistic and unbelievable things happen in this serious issue-based drama." Writing for
NDTV
New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching t ...
, Parul Batra saw that Mukerji was wasted in her brief role although applauding her costumes. He agreed with Nahta about the duration problem, saying that it left him "disappointed".
Dinesh Raheja
Dinesh Raheja (born 31 March 1957) is an Indian author, columnist, TV scriptwriter, film historian. Raheja has been writing on cinema for over 40 years. In his long and prolific career as a writer, he has worked as the Editor of ''Movie magazine' ...
felt that the "spirited" performance of Kapoor was the highlight of the film, and Devesh Sharma, in a review carried by ''
Screen
Screen or Screens may refer to:
Arts
* Screen printing (also called ''silkscreening''), a method of printing
* Big screen, a nickname associated with the motion picture industry
* Split screen (filmmaking), a film composition paradigm in which mul ...
'', observed of him, "Anil Kapoor once again proves his brilliance as an actor with this movie
..he verily gets under the skin of his character and executes a faultless performance. His frustrations, his angst and his heart-rendering lamentations on seeing his parents blown away find answering echoes in the heart of every cinegoer."
Accolades
Sequel
In September 2013, the media reported that Kapoor has signed to star in a sequel to ''Nayak'', titled ''Nayak Returns'', and
Tabu will be his co-star. The project will have a different subject, but he has said that he will reprise his role. The sequel was officially announced later by
Eros International
Eros International Media Ltd (also known as Eros India) is an Indian motion picture production and distribution company, based and originated in Mumbai, India. Founded by Arjun Lulla in 1977, it is one of the leading production and distribut ...
in January 2017, with
V. Vijayendra Prasad
Koduri Viswa Vijayendra Prasad is an Indian screenwriter and film director who predominantly works in Telugu cinema. He also worked in a few Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil films. His filmography consists of more than twenty five films as a screenwrit ...
chosen to write the screenplay and the
principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...
starting the same year.
References
External links
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2000s Hindi-language films
2000s political thriller films
2001 action drama films
2001 films
Fictional portrayals of the Maharashtra Police
Films about corruption in India
Films about elections
Films directed by S. Shankar
Films scored by A. R. Rahman
Hindi remakes of Tamil films
Indian action drama films
Indian political drama films
Indian political thriller films
Journalism adapted into films
Political action films