Sir

1993 151’ col/scope Hindi d Mahesh Bhatt pc Visesh Films p Mukesh Bhatt s Jay Dixit lyr Qateel Shafi, Rahat Indori c Pravin Bhatt m Annu Malik lp Naseeruddin Shah, Pooja Bhatt, Atul Agnihotri, Paresh Rawal, Avtar Gill, Soni Razdan, Sushmita Mukherjee, Gulshan Grover

Bhatt turns the plot of James Clavell’s To Sir With Love (1967) into an action drama. The saintly college lecturer Professor Verma (Shah) takes on two gangsters, Jimmy (Grover) and Velji (Rawal), in order to support his students, particularly Pooja (Bhatt), Velji’s daughter. Verma’s infant son had been killed in a random drive-by shooting and now he first cures Pooja of her stammering - caused by the trauma of watching her mother commit suicide - and then offers his protection when Pooja and another student, Karan (Agnihotri), want to marry. The action features much gang rivalry as Jimmy tries to abduct Pooja in revenge for Velji’s murder of Jimmy’s brother. Bhatt manages the shift from melodrama to action movie with an impressive control over narrative momentum and pace.

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