Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, a 1983 film produced by NFDC and directed by Kundan Shah, is a dark satire on the the unshakable corrupt ways of Indian politicians, bureaucrats, and the media. It is set in Mumbai and has a pretty simple and outwardly hilarious (sometimes infantile) narrative. Released in 1983, it was not very successful at the box office at that time. Eventually, this movie won many awards, and has achieved a cult status. It generally figures in most Top-100 movies lists of Indian/ Hindi movies.
| Directed by | Kundan Shah |
| Released in | 1983 |
| Genre | Dark Satire, Comic Political Thriller |
| Cast |
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| Music by | Vanraj Bhatia |
| Produced by | National Film Development Corporation |
| Language | Hindi |
| Length | 2 hours 12 minutes |
The Story
Vinod Chopra (Naseeruddin Shah) and Sudhir Mishra (Ravi Baswani) are young men starting off as professional photographers, who open a studio in a relatively upscale Bombay locality.
Struggling to get business, they fortunately get an assignment from the editor of an investigative journal Khabardar, Shobha Sen (Bhakti Barve). The assignment is to get evidence to expose a corrupt nexus between the city commissioner D’Mello (Satish Shah) and builder Tarneja (Pankaj Kapoor).
The fun starts when Vinod and Sudhir accidentally photograph a murder in action. The rest of the movie is an out-of-control, hilarious story, that sometimes feels like a skit, improvised by brilliant people in some kind of ‘zone’.
The Mahabharata Drama Scene!
The climax takes place in a stage play (enacted by some amateur actors) of the Mahabharata – the Draupadi Cheer-Haran episode. A dead body replaces Draupadi and the whole scene is turned on its head – the character of Duryodhana (who orders the disrobing of Draupadi in the original Mahabharata), ends up pledging to save Draupadi’s honor. The Mahabharata scene suddenly morphs into the Mogul period with Draupadi becoming Anarkali, much to the amusement of the audience watching the play.
Here is the youtube video with the climax Mahabharata scene:
If the youtube clip does not load, use the url https://youtu.be/SDClKXKn0l8
A great movie that keeps the viewer engrossed for all the 130 odd minutes.
Here is the youtube video containing the trailer of the the movie:
If the youtube clip does not load, use the url https://youtu.be/-FLzxSPeRFk
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Your comments are welcome, especially if you have seen the movie!
Jaane Bhi do yaaro is an all time classic. Have seen this many years back. I think in black and white, don’t remember.
Worth a watch again. Thanks for rekindling memories.
It was not black and white.
Maybe in hindsight, your world looks black and white.
Or maybe, you watched it on a B&W TV screen.