Nayak (2001 Hindi film)

Nayak
Film poster
Directed by	S. Shankar
Produced by	Karthick Surendran
Written by	Anurag Kashyap (Dialogue)
Screenplay by	S. Shankar
Story by	S. Shankar R. Madhesh (uncredited)
Based on	Mudhalvan By S. Shankar
Starring	Anil Kapoor Rani Mukerji Amrish Puri Paresh Rawal Johnny Lever
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	K. V. Anand ISC
Edited by	B. Lenin V. T. Vijayan
Production company	Sri Surya Movies
Release date	September 7, 2001 (2001-09-07)
Running time	182 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Nayak: The Real Hero is a 2001 Indian Hindi-language political thriller film directed by S. Shankar and starring Anil Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Amrish Puri, Paresh Rawal and Johnny Lever in the lead roles.^[1][2][3] The film is a remake of S. Shankar's successful Tamil film Mudhalvan (1999). The film's score and soundtrack, composed by A. R. Rahman, were reused from Mudhalvan with Hindi lyrics. It was critically acclaimed and has since developed a mass cult following among audience. It did poor box office, primarily because of poor marketing. It was one of the most expensive films to be completely shot in India. Over the years it has emerged as a cult film due to its strong fan following. At the same time this film was remade in Bangladesh named "Minister" directed by Kazi Hayat starring Manna, Moushumi, Dildar and Kazi Hayat

Plot

The plot focuses on the protagonist, Shivaji Rao (Anil Kapoor). He happens to be an ambitious TV reporter, working for "Q TV" along with his friend Topi (Johnny Lever). While on the job, Rao records a conversation in which the Chief Minister Balraj Chauhan (Amrish Puri), takes an indifferent stand during riots triggered by a fight between some college students and bus drivers, so as not to lose his voter base. Due to police inaction, there is loss of life and damage to property. To explain his actions, Chauhan later agrees to a live interview with Shivaji, during the course of which Rao raises these issues and airs the Chief Minister's stand he had caught on tape.

In response to Shivaji's allegations about the mismanagement by his government, Chauhan redirects the question by instead talking about how difficult his job is due to red tape and bureaucracy, and challenges Shivaji to be the CM for a day and experience those problems himself. Shivaji reluctantly accepts the challenge to prove Chauhan wrong. Educated and vigilant, Shivaji takes care of issues that affect the populace everyday, giving the slum their rightful apartments, getting jobs for the unemployed, suspending inefficient and corrupt government officers. He is assisted by the secretary, Bansal (Paresh Rawal) who serves as a side kick. As the last act of the day, Rao gets Chauhan arrested as he is the root cause of all the corruption. Later, Chauhan bails out, and passes an ordinance to nullify all orders passed by Shivaji when he was the CM. Taking Shivaji's success as an insult, Chauhan sends hitmen to get him killed and destroys his house on false grounds.

Meanwhile, Shivaji falls in love with Manjari (Rani Mukerji), a naive and carefree villager. When Rao asks her father (Shivaji Satam) her hand in marriage, he refuses on grounds that Rao is not employed by the government. After his tenure as a one-day CM he starts preparing for the Indian Civil Service Examination to win Manjari's hand in marriage. However, Bansal shows up and tells him that Shivaji's popularity has rocketed sky-high and people want him to become the next CM of the state. He is reluctant at first, but when Chauhan's henchmen vandalise Q TV premises to intimidate him, and the people show their support by thronging to his place in huge numbers, he agrees to take part in the elections.

In the ensuing state elections, he wins by a vast majority. But Manjari’s father, angered by Shivaji's decision, refuses to let his daughter marry him. Here, Chauhan’s political allies desert him causing his defeat. On becoming the chief minister, Shivaji brings about lots of 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 kill him or at least tarnish his image as a public hero. But Shivaji promptly answers by digging out all accusations against Chauhan and his allies. This, however, causes a reunion of Chauhan and his allies. After a failed attempt on Shivaji's life by hiring an assassin, a bomb is detonated at his home killing his parents (Neena Kulkarni and Kitty).

In the final attempt, Chauhan orders Pandurung (Saurabh Shukla) to destroy law and order and cause bomb explosions in various parts of the city. But a priest is able to overhear a few men planning to detonate bombs. He immediately notifies Shivaji's office via the "Complaint Box" department. Pandurung is arrested and under tactical inquiry by Shivaji and his secretary, he discloses the location of the 4 bombs. A Bomb Squad is able to defuse 3 bombs, but the 4th one explodes before they could reach to it. Chauhan, however, uses this success against Shivaji by blaming the young CM 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. Shivaji takes up a gun, but pointing it to his arm, shoots himself, and then hands over the gun to Chauhan. Now getting to know that Shivaji had set a trap, an enraged Chauhan attempts to shoot Shivaji, but his shot misses. The security guards then shoot down Chauhan killing him. Shivaji, secretly tells Bansal the truth and says that "finally they have turned me into a politician too" but Bansal believes that Chauhan deserved death saying "he instituted politics for a long time for corruption and evil; you did it only once for good" . Manjari's father also comes to realize that Shivaji is in fact a great man who sees duty before everything else and allows Manjari to marry him.

In the end, the city develops under the governance of Shivaji Rao and his colleagues. The complaint box, where people were supposed to fill in their complaints and information about various threats anonymously, is shown to be empty, signifying that the reasons to be afraid have been taken care of.

Cast

• Anil Kapoor as Shivaji Rao
• Rani Mukerji as Manjari
• Amrish Puri as Chief Minister Balraj Chauhan
• Paresh Rawal as IAS Bansal
• Pooja Batra as Laila
• Saurabh Shukla as Pandurang
• Neena Kulkarni as Shivaji Rao's mother
• Shivaji Satam as Manjari's Father
• Johnny Lever as Topi
• Kitty as Shivaji Rao's father (Voiceover by Vikram Gokhale)
• Razak Khan as Johny Lever's father-in-law (cameo)
• Omakuchi Narasimhan as Gameshow contestant who answers "Machar"
• Sushmita Sen in Special Appearance in song "Shakalaka Baby"

Production

The protagonist's character name "Shivaji Rao" was specially named after Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth's real name. This was because the lead role was initially written with Rajinikanth in mind for the original Tamil version, however, his refusal led to Shankar later signing on Arjun and he had retained the character's name in the Hindi version.^[4] Originally the first and original choice of the role of Manjari was Manisha Koirala was going to reprise her earlier role from Mudhalvan but she was busy with huge and multi-starrer films like Grahan and Lajja therefore she refused. Later on the role played by Rani Mukerji went to Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, Raveena Tandon and Preity Zinta but all of them had date troubles and therefore Mukerji came on board. Muhrut Shot of 'Nayak' was done on 15 July 2000 by the hands of Rakesh Roshan.

Box office

Nayak was declared a "Flop" by Box Office India and "Below average" by IBOS Network due to its high budget and distribution price. The film grossed only ₹142 million (US$2.0 million) in India.^[5] In the UK, Nayak grossed £83,496 during its theatrical run.^[6]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the film was composed by A.R.Rahman. He reused all the songs except "Mudhalvane" song, from the original film Mudhalvan. A new track "Saiyyan" was added. The track "Shakalaka Baby" was reused in the musical Bombay Dreams also. The lyrics for the pretuned songs were written by veteran poet Anand Bakshi and this was one of his last films before he died in 2002.

The audio rights were bought by T-Series for ₹6 crore and released on 4 July 2001. Comparing with the Tamil version which was a massive success, the album did only an average business.^[7] According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 14,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fourteenth highest-selling.^[8]

Future

In September 2013, Anil Kapoor revealed that he was signed to reprise his role in Nayak Returns. He also added that the film would not be a sequel to Nayak, and would have a "completely fresh subject".^[9] The film was announced in early 2017.^[10]

References

External links

• Nayak: The Real Hero on IMDb