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4.80 

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Shool Reviews

One of the Greatest Movies Ever Made
Aug 15, 2015 05:55 AM 12292 Views

Shool


Rating: 5 stars(Masterpiece, and a key manual to be followed in resurrecting modern India)


Language: Hindi


Year: 1999


Director: E. Nivas


Producer: Ram Gopal Varma


By UPN


As if allowing ourselves to get brutalized by the British for 250 years was not enough, it is a fact that 60 years after our nation's independence, it remains a punishment to be an Indian. If you're a gentleman, you're surrounded by barbarians and a devastated civic system, and the rest of the world overtly or covertly sniggers at you. The stigmata haunt in an array of forms and levels. But hearteningly, there remain a breed of Indians who will sacrifice everything they have for the greater good. Circa the birth of Christ give or take a few centuries, Greek travellers wrote:"It is contrary to established practice for Indians to do or suffer a wrong"(Aut o a Y. 1946 SRF).  Shool's hero charts a return to this halcyon age, no matter the cataclysms he has to weather.


Not far from Pataliputra, one of the world's most illustrious cities at the time of Ashoka, Chandragupta & Alexander, a train glides into an oblique frame that inhabits a debauched present.  From it, alights Samarpratap Singh a young man and law-keeper born at the wrong time for him, and at exactly the correct juncture for the wilderness around. It heralds the start of the razing of the jungle,  one of the few moralistic examples of such kind, which is needed for the earth to resurrect.


He has barely set foot in town, with family and luggage in tow, when a ruffian porter extorts him. Not being a cowardly doormat, he counters the rabidity. Samar's fight, instead of concluding that morning, is relentlessly dragged forth to the point where he stands in front of the Senate's Chair and beseeches the state's caretakers to retain sanity. They listen to the teacher, having never attended school.


But Shool is not a lugubrious moral drama, it crackles with expert direction and cracker-jack dialogue. Comedy, both ironic and ribald, often leavens the tension. Inside the main hall of State Legislature, politicians - who are more of monkeys than men - jump and shout wreaking havoc. A caring minister proposes a hydroelectricity project but the film's crazed villain jumps and snarls "If you remove electricity from water, the water becomes useless. How on earth do you then expect our farmers to cope? Hail Farmers!"  to which his mad colleagues all thump their desks in support! Even in a countryside restaurant, we indirectly see how meager Police Inspector Samar's salary is - his wife does not want to proceed with ordering Palak Paneer because it costs Rs. 25(80 U.S cents in 1999).


Howard Hawks said that a good movie has three great scenes ones and no bad scenes. I lost count of the powerhouse scenes in "Shool" - it has just one bad scene: a cringe-worthy sugary-sweet song sung by the daughter, but hey! Hawks, important though he is, and his statements, need not be taken word for word. Consider the escalation, tight plateaus and eventual soar of this film's structure -  modern-day India is regrettably witness to too much eve-teasing - the way Samar addresses an encounter of this type is set to terrific background score and a cane-whip of a finish. The Commissioner of the town, who likely flushes his morals down the toilet every morning, repeatedly needles Samar - their flashpoint is bookended by another taut scene of the mega-villain gliding into the fray. The latter'e entry into Samar's house again flashes with tension and faux joy. A fight in a market recalls a lion lashing out against leering hyenas, with an constant undertow of lurking tragedy. And finally an explosive and humbling scene in a police-station, cranked up into even higher gear by some of the most electrifying background music I've heard, leads to a stride into the Senate House for a sequence that is beyond preaching - no priest from the pulpit may have ever delivered a a more direct life-changer.


Marlon Brando is the Manoj Bajpai of Hollywood. Bajpai here works with Eeshwar Niwas and R. Verma to demonstrate why he is a pariah tiger. Left to his own devices, he makes a indiscriminate fool of himself on Twitter, but under the tutelage of Ramgopal Varma whose cinema house he has since left, and who is claimed to have suffocated Bajpai's choices, Bajpai rises to the peerless fore. Here he essays Samar-Pratap:  a fearless cop in a country where the majority are worse than prostitutes(the former sell themselves though they are duty-bound not to). But Samar is not a robot who toes the moral line by rote and bores the viewer, he is a romantic who knows hows to flirt with his lady, humour his kid daughter and remind his colleagues of the correct title of "Basic Instinct" when they are fumbling for it. His flaw is that he does not have a flaw - in a town full of rotten humans, this can be a fatal weakness.


The picture indirectly reveals how different Samar is from his pusillanimous father - no matter how you are raised, sometimes(I repeat, not in all cases) your innate nature will dominate you. Interestingly, his mother understands him better: she tells his distraught wife what has been said by others: people like Samar have stopped getting born.


The Overlord of the town Bachu Yadav inexorably lands up on a collision course with  Samar. Yadav has been the MLA(Member of Legislative Assembly) of the region for fifteen years, bribing and terrorizing every man of consequence in this area, while running riot with his megalomania. Neither Samar nor Bacchu will relent - thus triggering fights, murders, tears, and fiendish manoeuvering which ultimately propel the story to a apocalyptic show-down.


Bacchu is essayed by Sayaji Shinde - the Marathi actor who is very rarely given big roles in Hindi cinema. His alpha villain here is the stuff of legends - on par with Javier Bardem of'No Country for Old Men', and the best of Amrish Puri - but in contrast to these counterparts his flamboyance matches his chilling evil and gives it greater enigma. A pure psychopath, Bacchu, by selecting the right mix of wolves to empower him(he will kill any one in his inner circle for convenience), romps through this movie with a grinning fever pitch of nihilism. We see a human demon in action. But Bacchu is not all criminality and no play.


Sporting an ear for music as well, he settles down with his henchman, enjoys and does a Karoake for a local song on the tape-recorder(Bachua hamaar competition dethaa!) which celebrates Bihar and UP's notoriously competitive entrance examinations. He gets up to dive in with his gang in "Mein aayi hu UP Bihar Lootne" - an absolute hoot of a song in which barbarians prance and fall over a singing and dancing siren. Never at a loss for juicy dialogue, he glowingly tells Samar " I thought people like you had stopped getting born a long time ago!" He jumps with tenderness and generosity in embracing Samar's father, and outrageously rushes in with garlands when Samar's house is shrouded in gloom. Not one other person in town dares to stand up against Yadav beacuse of the fear of getting killed. Yadav counts on this, but he hasn't counted on the law of opposites.


Raveena Tandon in the 1990s and early 2000s was in the top gallery of Hindi film actresses who blended beauty, sex appeal and warmth. In Shool, as Samar's devoted wife, producer RGV asked her to remove her make-up before filming a scene, and the alabaster and naturally glowing lady honestly informed him that she was wearing no make-up! Tandon acts with superb spontaneity and passion in Shool: her character Manjari lovingly supports her husband when the going gets tough and rightly administers a verbal hiding to Samar when his actions land them all in hell. Flawless compelling turns are logged in by Ganesh Yadav and Vineet Kumar - embodying two policemen who are each a different animal.


What happened to E.Niwas? This has been the question posed in the years after Shool's release. Manoj Bajpai said in an interview that he had told the film's director E.Niwas what a fabulous brain the latter has, and whether he can give this brain to Manoj! Shool bears ample evidence of this effusive praise but since then, Niwas has only sporadically managed to direct films most of which have been risible scatty comedies. I'm unsure how much of Shool's end-product was the direct handiwork of mentor and producer R.G.Varma but if Niwas was actually responsible for the lion's share of Shool's film-making, then he has undoubtedly wasted his talent in the subsequent years.


Apart from plot, direction and acting, another powerful element jacks up this film's value - Sandeep Chowtha's inspired background score. Influenced by great Western guitarists, and often tweaking African music to generate mood-intensifying vocals and riveting percussion, Chowtha enhances this film's collapsing world by bringing down the roof with his pulse-pounding underlines and haunting echoes. Pic's cinematography is not high-definition but there is solid  technique in movement and framing. But there are movies where considerations of technical values are blown to pieces by incendiary drama. E.Niwas, R.G.Verma & Co. thus engineer one such example of legendary reality in the Indian boondocks. Shool is the Brahmopadesh of Kalyug.


UPNWORLD


Guwahati India
Great Movie
Nov 02, 2010 12:00 AM 4374 Views

The School movie is excellent movie. Best Director, best Cinematography, best Casting and best acting done by all other actors. Hope that this film makers create lots of such film and give new concept to film industry (I am not meaning only the plot, meaning overall performance).


Acting and film crew work well in this film and there is no question about disadvantage(error) of this film. I was not hoping such a great creation, even I do not hope any A grade Actors. But it is. It is a great film. I hope this film give a lot of message to spectator.


Review of shool
Jan 09, 2005 10:37 AM 6304 Views

Psst - This section will contain some inside trivia about the film.


Quotes - Good one liners from the movie.


Oops - Goofs From the movie.


Director - E.Neevas


Script - E.Neevas


A film about Good Cop Vs Evil Politician/Criminal is an often repeated script in hindi films and only very few movies have been successful in this genre of films. Shool is one of those rare few. Actually its really Ardh Satya with a twist. Although its not as brilliant and intense like Ardh Satya but Manoj Bajpai gives such a superb performance as Inspector Samar Pratap Singh that you can see that we have really found The Angry Young Man of the '90s. Sayaji Shinde as The corrupt MLA is too good. The surprisingly good and almost unrecognisable Raveena Tandon has given a brilliant performance along with the Kid girl Avi. This is one of the rare films which shows actual tensed life of a police officer. Arguably the best scene of the movie is the one in which Manoj Bajpai visits Raveena Tandon whils she is in the hospital bed. Thankfully only 3 songs are there in the movie (2 are used in background and one is a silly kiddy number).Brilliant debut directorial vebture by E.Neevas.


Quotes


1)2 Dal Fry aur Roti Leke Aao.


2) Agar Pani maise Bijli nikaloge to Kheto main fasal kaise Ugege?


3) Hum Aapke niche nahin aapke saath kam karte hai. Hum Donokanoon ke niche kam karte hai.


Psst.


1) Ramgopal Varma was supposed to direct this movie but he eventually gave it to his long time asisant E.Neevas


2) Producer Ramgopal Varma wanted no songs in the movie but had to again give up as no distributor wanted to touch a movie with no songs.


3) This movie was released on the same day as the years biggest hit Hum Saath Saath Hai.


4) This movie was distributed by Ajay Devgan's Company Devgan Distributors.


5) E.Neevas used to be a canteen boy in Ramgopal Varma's production house.


6) This movie is shot entirely on locations in Bihar.


Oops


1) In the first scene the Registeration plate of the ambassador car is of Uttar Pradesh when the movie is actually set in Bihar.


2) In the first song of the movie Manoj Bajpai accidentaly drops some milk on hi shirt. In the next scene the shirt is dry.


YOUR RATING ON

Shool
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delhi india
FLOWER (PHOOL)
Aug 29, 2003 11:00 AM 5437 Views

HI! Thks for reading this review. I am talking of a movie named 'Shool' which brought a new actor named Manoj Bajpai on the Bollywood horizon(Though he was already known for his acting in Satya).You may call it a regular bollywood movie, where hero fights with Villain as a Cop. But I may tell u one thing that this movie had very powerful performances by Manoj, Raveena and Sayaji Shinde. All of them are great actors though I still doubt about Raveena(ha. ha. ha..), but still she gave a performance of her life in this movie. The story is simple where our hero Manoj is a police officer and very loyal to his duty. How he fights with bad guy Sayaji and still finds himself lonely in this world is the whole story.The story is simple but the treatment is different where can't even leave it in between a break.I personally feel that any picture that anyone can view for at least two times easily is a hit picture and this is a good funda that u may apply it to find it on any film.One thing more, movie have a regular item girl Shilpa Shetty performing and surely it adds flavour to the movie.All in all, a fine movie to watch whenever u find time. This is regularly shown on Set Max channel. The greatness of this movie is that u can watch it with ur whole family. Thats a plus point for any movie now days.If filmmaker just try to give some different treatment to their movies I bet u the ratio of flop movies will go down.


thks for reading again,


Goli


Shool
Dec 06, 2000 10:58 AM 5125 Views

The genius actor Manoj Bajpai, who is a critics delight has once again lived up to his promise.Once again in a taut film called shool.This film has Raveena in a non glamorous role, and she come across quite smoothly. The story of an honest officer, has been handled quite excellently..Manoj Bajpai has given a powerpacked performance here.But the surprise package here was , another powerful performance by Sayaji Shinde. He just excelled as the villain.


Some of the scenes were very touching..One where they lose their daughter.The other was where Raveena consumes poison, to make way for Manoj.


All in all a great film.


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