I had for a long time heard about the most famous actor in India, possibly one of the most famous in the world, but I had never seen any of his films, so I was looking forward to seeing this Hindi language film featured in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book. Basically, the Verma brothers Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) and Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) follow different life choices and career paths, Vijay becomes a criminal expert in smuggling and Ravi becomes a police inspector assigned to locate lawbreakers. They are the son of trade unionist Anand Verma (Satyendra Kapoor) who used his family as bait going against the management of his firm, and it resulted in being defeated and disgraced, and unable to cope with public humiliation he deserts the family. The two sons are raised by mother Sumitra Devi (Nirupa Roy) and taken to Bombay City, but as time goes by the two individually cause her, as a single mother, terrible trials and tribulations because of their choices. Vijay, the older of the brothers, has grown up aware of his father's humiliation and is victimised by those who know of it as well, he did start well in his youth as a simple boot polisher and dockland worker, but turns to a life of crime and a leading figure in the underworld. Ravi gets a good reputation for bringing law and order to the city, and his next assignment is to find a big name in the smuggling ring, he gets a terrible shock when he finds out it is his own brother, so he has no courage to arrest him and bring more shame to the family, despite his numerous opportunities. Also starring Parveen Babi as Anita, Neetu Singh as Leena Narang, Manmohan Krishna as DCP Narang, Madan Puri as Samant and Iftekhar as Mulk Raj Dhabaria. Bachchan as the young man who follows the wrong path is great at creating a both hateful and sympathetic character, and Kapoor as his law abiding brother does very well also, the story is just about easy to follow, a brother going bad and the other good, not stopping the law breaking due to the family bond and wanting to avoid disgrace, it is certainly a worthwhile Bollywood drama. Amitabh Bachchan was number 92 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars. Good!
Review of Deewaar
