A dog's life. Review on Hathyaar - Bollywood

Hatyaar shows the ugly workings of the Bombay underworld and is a sequel to “Vaastav”. This movie has an “A” certificate and is directed by Mahesh Manjrekar.

The plot:

Sanjay Dutt starts of to lead a good life, but then his past catches up with him and in a bizarre turn of events he becomes a local “goonda” – terrorizing people, killing at the drop of a hat and entering into politics. He is a loner and lives mostly with his friends. He loves his family and wants to keep them at an arms distance from his dirty work. Though the ending is predictable – the build-up to the ending was good.

The cast:

# Sanjay Dutt as Rohit Raghunath Shivalkar. This movie is all about him – his trials and tribulations. He becomes “Boxerbhai” and joins the underworld. He has given an excellent performance – he has found a niche for himself playing these kind of negative roles.

# Sharad Kapoor as Prakash alias Pakya. He is in Rohit’s gang and takes upon himself the contract to eliminate Rohit.

# Sachin Khedekar as Munna. He is the right hand man of Rohit and his best friend since childhood. A slight misunderstanding ends in his getting killed at the hands of Rohit.

# Shilpa Shetty as Gauri. She is the love of Rohit, gets married to a person of her fathers’ choice, gets divorced and marries Rohit. She was looking good and had two item dances. Nothing much in the acting department.

# Namrata Shirodkar as Sonu. As the mother of Rohit she gave a convincing performance – but I did not like to see her looking so old. Leaves a bad taste.

# Reema Lagoo as Shanta. She is the grandmother of Rohit and was the mother of Raghu in “Vaastav”. She stinks in this movie with overacting.

# Gulshan Grover as Digamber Patil. He is the power broker who acts as the liaison between the politicians and the underworld. He has given a decent performance.

# Shakti Kapoor as Hassan Bhai. He is another local “goonda” who is responsible for nurturing Rohit, and bailing him out when he was being brutally mistreated by the police. Hassan adopts Rohit for personal gains.

# Madhukar Dikshit. He is a local politician aspiring for a bigger position. His murder is the turning point in the story.

# Ajit. He is the current Chief Minister, who is shown as being straightforward and whose mission is to get rid of the underworld.

# Deepak Tijori as DCP Kishore. He tries to knock some sense into Rohit’s head but to no avail.

# Gautam Naik. He is Gauri’s husband and is a wife-beater. Rohit rescues Gauri from him.

# Shanti. The daughter of Rohit and Gauri.

# Jyoti Deshmukh. She is the childhood friend of Gauri.

# Shekhar. He is the husband of Jyoti, who is a mole and gets killed by Rohit.

# Fracture Gang. This is the rival gang (carried over from “Vaastav”)

Songs (Music by Anand Raaj Anand)

Some of the songs are good and hummable – the rest are time-pass.

# 1. Baat hai kamaal , apun ki zindagi ke khel main

This is hindi rap and formed the background of the opening titles.

# 2. Tauba meri tauba ki, maine tauba, hai re rama

This was a koli folkdance and Shilpa was looking sizzling. Paisa Vasool for this song.

# 3. Nazar nazar mein, haal dil ka pata chalta hain

Song sung in a bar called as Diana Bar. Nothing special – loud music with skimpily clad girls.

# 4. Chaha tha tumhe, paaya hai tumhe

A romantic song by Shilpa, after she marries Rohit.

# 5. Borivali mein betting ka adda, khandivli mein dance bar… boxer bhai.

Song to celebrate the birth of Shanti. Contains typical Bombay ''tapori'' https://lyrics.

Personal Touch

What I liked about the movie was the tight script and some good performances. What I did not like was the violence and the constant reference to the prequel. If you have not seen “Vaastav”, at times it may be difficult to follow the movie.

The movie had some good “shlokas” as the background. One which keeps resonating is '' Vaastav sada hi satya kahega ''

I would give it a 3 out of 5 and recommend it to be seen once.

What Next

Will there be a sequel with the exploits of Shanti?

I think there will be: Shanti will establish a home aptly called ''Shantiniwas'' which will house children (like her father and grandfather) with an unpleasant past and teach them to be good citizens. Any takers?