First: Chakravarthy is brilliant in
his portrayal of the criminal Satya in THE indian Gangster Saga, a
masterpiece
within the genre, and i re-watched this masterpiece some 15 years
after it was released.
Ram Gopal Varma, Ramu, did manage to follow up this
epic gangster film with the almost as good Company 4 years
later, but only almost and not as powerful as this gritty film. In
the latter film Ramu definitely found his style of expression,
somewhat pompous with many fast cuts and a bombastic thunderous soundtrack
with staccato choir voices.
And it worked pretty well .... then .... and RGV became the hope for
the renewal of the Bollywood film, but when
writing this more than a decade later i think (that's my thoughts
and maybe not others) that he got so stuck with this style
of his as being almost parody. Even though his style is very recognizeable.
But, no such excesses yet in Satya where he's using his stylistic
means in a masterful stringent way, and all of the actors
are performing in a natural believable Non-Masala way. Especially
this J.D. Chakravarthy who's nothing less than GREAT
in the role with a toned down performance but still with energy vibrating
below the surface, a country guy that won't take
any insults or disrespect from no-one. Also Manoj Bajpai is very good
in his more eccentric style and also Urmila Matondkar
is good in her part. J.D. Chakravarthy was born 1965 in Hyderabad
and started in the Telugu film industry and became a
protégé of Ramu and can often be seen in his productions
(as i.a. in the trashy ghost story Vaastu Shastra).
The Story:
Satya (Chakravarthy) arrives to the Human Pot of Mumbai
and he survives with an array of small jobs here and there, but
lands in jail after some minor offence. In jail he meets and become
friend with the gangster Bheeku Matre (Bajpai) who
takes him on as an underling in his Gang, led by the big boss and
politician Bhau (Govind Namdev). Naturally, in Bollywood
all polticians are gangster bosses in Sheep's Clothing (and most police
corrupted sadists).
Soon Satya gains respect for his fearlessness and he advances fast
within the hierarchy, meets and falls in love with a girl,
the aspiring singer Vidya (Matondkar). A Cop is played by the always
great but underrated actor Aditya Srivastava.
Satya is a very, VERY GOOD indian version of Brian
De Palma's genre defining masterpiece Scarface and in it's way it
became a genre defining film in Bollywood for the future gangster
films.
Unfortunately, Ram Gopal Varma never reached this heights again -
with the exception of the criminally underrated Not a
Love Story from 2011 and also, but to the lesser extent, Rakht Charitra
from 2010. He has got stuck in his own ruts and
churns out the one hastily made piece of trash after the other, something
of an indian version of the Hong Kong/Thailand
brothers Pang maybe, who started out sensationally with Bangkok Dangerous
and The Eye.
I Love Bollywood Crime, it's a genre that this film
industry does very well and then also in an international comparison,
and
Satya are one of my favourites along with Maqbool, Gulaal and Gangs
of Wasseypur, Badlapur and his own Company.
The edition of this film on an old poor Eros DVD edition starts in
widescreen just to be cut to LB faulty aspect ratio and
often people at the corners are cut into half. Luckily nowadays indian
DVD's are presented in better aspect ratio and
often in anamorphic widescreen. The audio is in 5.1 hindi with english
subs but the song/dance numbers are without subs