Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
Film poster
Directed byKundan Shah
Written byRanjit Kapoor
Satish Kaushik
Screenplay bySudhir Mishra
Kundan Shah
Story bySudhir Mishra
Kundan Shah
Produced byNFDC
Starring
CinematographyBinod Pradhan
Edited byRenu Saluja
Music byVanraj Bhatia
Production
company
Distributed byUltra Media & Entertainment
Release dates
  • 12 August 1983 (1983-08-12)
[1]
2 November 2012[2]
Running time
132 min
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budget₹ 8-9 lakh[3]

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (transl. Just Let It Go, Friends) is a 1983 Indian Hindi-language satirical black comedy film directed by Kundan Shah and produced by NFDC. It is a dark satire on the rampant corruption in Indian politics, bureaucracy, news media and business, and stars an ensemble cast including Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah, Satish Kaushik, Bhakti Barve and Neena Gupta.[4][5]

Kundan Shah won the 1984 Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director for his work. The film was part of the NFDC Retrospective at India International Film Festival in 2006.[6]

Plot

The Mahabharata scene is considered to be one of the major highlights of the film, and has been praised for its humour.[7]

Professional photographers Vinod Chopra and Sudhir Mishra open a photo studio in the prestigious Haji Ali area in Bombay. After a disastrous start, they are given some work by Shobha Sen, the editor of "Khabardar" (transl. Beware, there's a word play as "khabar" also means information or in this case news), a publication that exposes the scandalous lives of the rich and the famous. Impressed with their work, Shobha hires them for a story about the connection between the Municipal Commissioner D'Mello and Tarneja, a builder. They find Tarneja and his business rival Ahuja working together to bribe D'Mello in order to win the contracts for construction of four fly-overs. Shobha asks the two photographers to create a rift between Tarneja and Ahuja. Vinod, impersonating Albert Pinto, leads Tarneja to believe that Ahuja, with Shobha's assistance, is trying to cheat him. Tarneja and Ahuja fight until Tarneja's secretary Priya arrives with Assistant Municipal Commissioner Srivastav and tells them that D'Mello has given the contracts to neither Tarneja nor Ahuja but to someone else.

Meanwhile, Sudhir and Vinod decide to enter a photography contest promising Rs. 5000/- and take a number of photos all over the city. In one of the photos, they see a man shooting someone and after enlarging it, they realize that the killer is Tarneja. They return to the park where they shot that photo and eventually find out the crime scene. They find the body lying behind the bushes but before the duo can get to the body, it disappears, but they manage to retrieve one of a pair of gold cuff links.

Sometime later, Srivastav has become the new commissioner. Tarneja has built a fly-over, dedicating it to the memory of late D'Mello, who he says died of a terminal disease. Vinod and Sudhir attend the inauguration of the fly-over and discover the other cuff link there. They return at night and dig up the area and unearth a coffin containing the dead body of D'Mello. They take several photos but lose the corpse again. Shobha starts blackmailing Tarneja with the photos. He invites her, Vinod and Sudhir for dinner and plants a time bomb to kill them. The bomb explodes after the three escape. They later find out from the news that the fly-over built in the memory of D'Mello collapsed and the police suspect sabotage from Vinod and Sudhir. The duo learn about Shobha's blackmail and disassociate from her.

Vinod and Sudhir find out that the body is with Ahuja who had, in an inebriated condition, carried the coffin to his farmhouse. They steal the corpse but not before Tarneja, Ahuja, Srivastav, Shobha and others also get involved resulting in a series of comic mix-ups.

Vinod and Sudhir present their evidence to the police. Tarneja threatens to take Ahuja, Shobha and Srivastav down with him. Srivastav brokers a deal between the four of them. He frames Vinod and Sudhir for the collapse of the bridge, jailing the two. In the final scene, Vinod and Sudhir are shown released from prison. Still in their prison clothes, they make a symbolic cut-throat gesture.

Cast

Reception

The film was not immediately successful at the box office when released, but was eventually regarded as a cult classic, which is reflected in a recent comment by Indian Express that the film's high recall value even after 37 years, is due to "it(s) superb satirical depiction of the essential, timeless, human condition: supreme self-interest versus some moral/ethical anchor. What made the depiction particularly powerful was its setting: India of the early '80s".[8]

Re-release

A digitally restored print of the film was released on 2 November 2012 at selected theaters.[9] The film opened to an enthusiastic welcome from the media.[10][11]

Awards

31st National Film Awards:

32nd Filmfare Awards:

Won

Nominated

Trivia

  • Blow-Up, a 1966 English-language film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in which a photographer believes he may have witnessed a murder and unwittingly takes photographs of the killing, was an inspiration for Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.[13][14] The filmmakers paid homage to Blow-Up by naming the park in which the murder occurs "Antonioni Park".
  • The names of the lead characters – Vinod Chopra and Sudhir Mishra – came from film directors Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Sudhir Mishra, who were assisting Kundan Shah in the movie.[15] Sudhir Mishra co-wrote the script and assisted in directing the movie, while Vidhu Vinod Chopra was the production controller of the film.
  • Vidhu Vinod Chopra played Dushasana in the Mahabharata play in the climax of the movie. He also played a photographer in the first half of the film, where a group of journalists interviews Tarneja, played by Pankaj Kapoor.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Movie". Times of India. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  2. ↑ "Re-release of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro historic moment: Kundan Shah". Firstpost. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  3. ↑ "RARE PIX: The Making of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro - Rediff.com Movies". Rediff.com. 1 November 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  4. ↑ "ANALYSIS: On-screen journos". Screen. 3 September 2004.
  5. ↑ "Cinemascoop". The Tribune. 20 February 2005.
  6. ↑ Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Who Pays the Piper) Archived 23 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine India International Film Festival Official website.
  7. ↑ Singh, Jai Arjun (2012). Jaane Bhee Do Yaaro: Seriously Funny since 1983. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9789350292785.
  8. ↑ "The tragic comedy of the '80s". The Indian Express. 30 July 2010. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  9. ↑ "Cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro to tickle your funny bone again, re-releases today : Bollywood, News - India Today". Indiatoday.intoday.in. 2 November 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  10. ↑ "Review: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is the best film of the year - Entertainment - DNA". Dnaindia.com. 3 November 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  11. ↑ "'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' Review: Why the angry brand of heroism is still relevant". Ibnlive.in.com. 2 November 2012. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  12. ↑ 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' on NFDC website
  13. ↑ "Director's Perspective... Part I". NFDC(cinemasofindia). 14 May 2013. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
  14. ↑ "Celebrating 30 Years Of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro With Filmmaker Kundan Shah At MFCC 2012". Comic Con India. 15 November 2012. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021.
  15. ↑ "Review: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro: The Five-Star Classic - Rediff.com Movies". Rediff.com. 2 November 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
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