Trimurti

1995 187’ col/scope Hindi d Mukul S. Anand pc Mukta Arts p [[Subhash Ghai]] sc Karan Razdan dial Anees Bazmee lyr Anand Bakshi c Ashok Mehta m Laxmikant-Pyarelal lp Jackie Shroff, Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, Mohan Agashe, Saeed Jaffrey, Priya Tendulkar, Gauthami, Anjali Jathar

Multistar production by Ghai, re-valorizing the feudal mother-figure in 1990s consumerist religiosity. Satya (Tendulkar) goes to jail when she is framed by the Kali-worshipping mystic Kooka Singh (Agashe). Her three sons grow up, one an army officer (Shroff), the other two (Kapoor and Khan) in the pay of the villain. In the end, the unity of the clan is restored when the heroes fulfil their mother’s pledge. The film was one of the most expensive and most extensively marketed productions in Hindi cinema in 1995. Its commercial failure underscored the exhaustion of the genre, itself a compendium of previous Ghai productions, this time presented in Dolby sound and computer-aided special effects.

Film