Soldier (1998 Indian film)

Major Vijay (Pankaj Dheer) is shot to death by corrupted Army officials in India, who are hard-core smugglers. The army officials Pratap Singh (Suresh Oberoi), Virender Sinha (Dalip Tahil) and Jaswant Dalal (Salim Ghouse), intercept a truckload of arms and ammunition, with the help of Virender Sinha's brother, Baldev Sinha (Sharat Saxena).

Later, the police find out that the one who shot major Vijay is DK, the ringleader of the smugglers. Twenty years later, the Mumbai Police gets a fax from the Australian Interpol branch, who are on the look-out for Jaswant Dalal, a wanted smuggler entering India.

An operation to nab him alive is handed over to ACP Inspector Dinesh Kapoor (Ashish Vidyarthi), an old friend of the late major Vijay Malhotra. Inspector Dinesh sends a copy of the fax to Vicky (Bobby Deol) and tells him to catch and stop Jaswant but "prevent him from being nabbed by the police.

Vicky helps Jaswant escape from the police at the docks, but when Jaswant tries to kill him to erase any witnesses, Vicky is forced to shoot him in the limbs and hand him over to Inspector Dinesh.

Vicky then escapes to Australia for his next secret mission, where he meets Preeti (Preity Zinta), Pratap Singh's daughter, and woos her while getting into trouble with Jojo, who is also Baldev Sinha's son.

Virender, Baldev, and Pratap are all high-profile criminals living secretly in Australia, once friends and partners in crime, but now they share a shaky relationship with one another.

Vicky meets up with Pratap, who identifies him as Jaswant's killer, but Vicky explains his situation and somehow promises Pratabh that he would make him more powerful than he would ever imagine. In the meanwhile, Jojo destroys Vicky's apartment and to take revenge, Vicky storms into Jojo's father Baldev's household, kills many of his henchmen, and makes him cough up the money for the damage Jojo did to his apartment.

Baldev reports this to his brother Virender, who orders Vicky killed ASAP. Hence, Baldev and Jojo hire a sniper to kill Vicky, who is receiving his mother at the airport. They discover that his mother is none other than Virender's estranged wife, Shanti (Farida Jalal). The assassination attempt is called off. Vicky is then welcomed into Virender's gang. After a few months of getting to know Vicky personally, Virender takes Vicky to a place where he keeps Pratap, Jaswant, and DK's secrets in files.

Vicky seizes the moment and he shoots Virender dead and dumps him into the bay where a shark eats him. He then plants Pratap's signature cigarette lighter at the crime scene to frame him as the murderer. Vicky then goes through the stolen files and discovers who DK actually is.

The police retrieve Pratap's lighter from Virender's crime scene and hand it over to Vicky, who shows the planted evidence to his brother, Baldev Sinha to rally his henchmen and launch an attack on Pratap.

The entire squad sent by Baldev is gunned down at a check post by Pratabh's men, save for Vicky, who was working with Pratap to get rid of Virender's gang.

Vicky then reveals to Pratap that he is not Virender's son and that he had become Shanti's foster son (adopted son) since she had lost her own. He also reveals that he was sent on a secret mission by DK to kill Jaswant, Virender, and Pratap and that they should leave for India to kill DK, to make Pratap the undisputed crime king, to which Pratap agrees and starts preparing for travel to India.

Meanwhile, Preeti overhears Vicky's conversation with her father and reveals it all to Shanti. Shanti calmly acknowledges that she knows Vicky is not her son and that she had assisted him to kill her husband, whose weapons had accidentally killed her own son, unbeknownst to him. She reveals that Vicky is late Major Vijay Malhotra's son, Raju. Raju's father was mercilessly stripped of all medals and his wife, Geeta (Raakhee) and son were ostracised by his community. The community even prevented his body from being cremated and left it in a raging desert storm, where it is lost in the sands. Preeti, upon hearing this story, agrees to assist Raju/Vicky.

Raju then calls Inspector Dinesh and reveals his plan of bringing Pratap to India and his knowledge of DK's true identity.

Then Inspector Dinesh releases Jaswant, who is revealed to be alive and had been helping provide Raju the information to finish off Virender's gang.

Raju arrives in India with Pratap and takes him to his village, where his mother sits desolately in a temple at the village outskirts. He reveals to Pratap that he is Raju (the late major Malhtora''s son) and proceeds to beat him up. DK comes to rescue Pratap, and he is revealed to be none other than Jaswant.

Soon Jaswant/DK's men arrive and in the raging battle, Raju kills all the men with help from the police, and Inspector Dinesh and holds up Pratap and DK, makes them confess the truth, and then leaves them for the vultures to feed upon.

His name cleared, the late Major Vijay Malhotra is given an honourable military burial, and his son Raju/Vicky and widowed wife, and Preeti are finally happy that justice was served.

The soundtrack was composed by Anu Malik and was very hit amongst the audience. It was a key point in the success of the film. The songs "Tera Rang Bale Bale", "Soldier Soldier", "Hum to Dil Chahen", "Mere Dil Jigar Sei" and " Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aye" were chartbuster and the album was the third best selling album of 1998 after Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dil Se. Lyrics were penned by Sameer. Parts of "Soldier Soldier" are based on "Cheri, Cheri Lady" by Modern Talking.[2]

Khalid Mohamed gave Soldier 2 out of 5 stars, writing that it "leaves you feeling ever so much older and colder."[3] Madhur Mittal of The Tribune noted that it "boasts of terrific production and technical values", calling it a "a taut thriller".[4]

Soldier won the following awards.

• Filmfare Best Female Debut Award – Preity Zinta
• Filmfare Award for Best Action – Late Akbar Bakshi

• Soldier on IMDb