Review: Deewar (1975)

Released on 1st January, 1975.

Contemporary period: Tumultuous politically (leading to emergency on 25th June, 1975 itself), country poor, only source of entertainment is Cinema. Amitabh is already established as a angry young man thro’ Zanjeer (1973), Namak Haram (1973), Abhimaan (1974), Majboor (1974)…thus Amit ji is quite hot in the market and his movie if good will surely sell!

Movie: guess first time an actress shown in live-in…which was quite a big thing in 70s. This established Praveen Babi and the movie itself as a radical movie with the youth of 70s.

As movie revolves around an impoverished family which comes to Mumbai after the union leader fled away from home. Here’s a first big flaw in the movie: Union Leader is inside a house negotiating with the factory owners, but factory owner kidnaps union leader’s wife and children and blackmails him. This Union Leader has 200 odd workers waiting outside this house…How could this factory owner still blackmail the union leader? He could simply come out without signing the deal or he could even come out and say that he signed the deal because his wife and children are under-seize by the factory owner…For sure, 5 people inside the house (the owners) could nowhere counter these 200+ odd workers. Still this is the way movie was progressed!

Next scene was the Coolie scene where Amitji thrashed the weekly money-grabbers. Going into their house and beating them up was something that probably became talk-of-the-town in 75…could be yet another factor in its popularity.

What made Deewar famous/talk of the city: Movie has great/very famous dialogues and songs which people carried away with them when they left the hall. One was “Main phaike hue paise nahi uthata”...This along with “Keh doon tumhe” song, “Mere paas Maa hai” conversation, Shashi Kapoor saying to Neetu ji “meri kamyaabi main bhai ka paseena hai” are somethings people really carried away with them…And this retention made Deewar talk-of-the-city to attract many more audience into the Hall.

Amitji going into the temple and that famous dialogue “Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum” conversation was yet another thing that would have made Deewar talk-of-the-city…and people would have carried as retention of the movie…to make others watch the movie.

70’s were not a very pratical era in the sense people have ordinary lives, standard of livings were normal and way-of-thinking conventional. Someone going to Temple for begging his mother’s life and on top of that, such a beautiful dialogue delivery would have made many people connect with it.

Where movie Lacked: Movie lacked in few things…One was to showcase 2-3 minute struggle of Amitji in his childhood along with his mother…this would have reflected soundly how he was behind Shashi Kapoor’s studies…And how he himself didn’t study but made Shashi Kapoor go to school and take education. This would have also helped establish why Maa (Nirupa Roy) was near to Amitabh Bachchan than Shashi Kapoor because of that collective struggle to make Shashi Kapoor study…and how he faced challenges in his childhood due to “Mera baap chor hai” written on his arm..This would have established why Amitji chose this smuggling line (coz then it would have a history of those childhood struggles).

Creative Punches in movie: For me, Deewar had few amazing greats…One was killing Praveen Babi. That was very untraditional. Second was that great punch of how Amitji took 5 lacs from Madan puri also and also manipulated that Madan Puri’s minions brought the Gold worth 50 lacs than Amitji taking any chance…These were creative punches and kept people stick to their chairs. Then “Mera baap chor hai” was yet another creative punch.

Shashi Kapoor Ji’s dichotomous character where he’s so jolly in first half before becoming police inspector and then becoming damn serious in second half makes audience connect with the character.

Conversation of Shashi Kapoor with A.K. Hangal and his wife and then his yet another famous dialogue “Yeh shiksha ek school teacher ke ghar se hi mil sakti thi” and then Neetu Kapoor Ji’s and Shashi Kapoor Ji’s conversation on Geeta, Arjun and Krishna…and Shashi Kapoor ji’s compulsion saying “Main Arjun nahi hoon” are something that people find very very realistic.

Yet another scene which makes movie classic was Shashi Kapoor Ji’s stopping his Maa from putting Vermilion (Sindoor) in her head. That was a very very unique way of conveying death of her husband. If I were a script writer, I would have better preferred to make Amitji’s Dad (Union leader) to commit suicide like school teacher did in Agneepath…And reason is this would have established even better why Amitji had so much grief inside him which made him tread the wrong-path.

Direction great as always by none other than Yashji himself…Music 1 song a great soundtrack…but guess this was one such movie where not much effort was put on music…that too intentionally. More emphasis was on creative dialogue delivery and screenplay.

No doubt, Deewar received Filmfare award for best movie in 1975, best Director for Yashji, best dialogue for Salim-Javed, Best screenplay for Salim-Javed and ofcourse best story to Salim-Javed.