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Hathyar
1989 186’ col/scope Hindi d/st J.P. Dutta p H.A. Nadiadwala dial O.P. Dutta lyr Hasan Kamal c Ishwar Bidri m Laxmikant- Pyarelal lp Dharmendra, Rishi Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Amrita Singh, Sangeeta Bijlani, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Paresh Rawal
One of Sanjay Dutt’s early hits in his current loner mould. In distant Rajasthan, Avinash (Dutt) and Suman (Singh) are married as children. As they grow up, feudal clan rivalry between their families causes Avinash to leave his wife and to move to Bombay with his pacifist parents (Kharbanda and Rawal) where he becomes involved in gang violence. The fearsome Khushal Khan (Dharmendra), protector of Avinash’s family, has a weakness: his good younger brother Samiulla Khan (Kapoor) will not talk to him. Eventually, a third storyline emerges as the ‘real’ villain comes on the scene: a Tamil gangster (Rawal) who caused Khushal Khan to become a criminal. All the characters struggle to achieve a degree of control over their circumstances while the director undercuts their efforts by resorting to ‘mythic’, overpowering Bombay locations (N. Chandra and Mukul S. Anand territory) which nevertheless give the impression of being sets because of the patchy lighting, the overbearing soundtrack or the relentless shot-reverse-shot editing pattern.