Agneepath (1990) : Comparison with new,appreciation and review

The best thing I liked about the film was the classic Neelam song inspired on lines of "Ek Duje Ke Liye" sung by Alka Yagnik and S.P.Balasubramaniam  filmed on her and Mithun."Kisko tha Pata Kisko thi Khabar We are made for each other".This song and choreography and the way its Pictured does not seem dated at all.In late 80's Alka was in top form and she sings marvelously on Laxmikant Pyarelal's music,its a song you hum after you leave theater or after end credits if watching on DVD.In the new movie there's no nice romantic song like this or like Karan Johar's films earlier used to have.Also the Background Music in Agneepath (1990) is quite exciting and fresh.

DVD on Sony is grainy in the beginning but after first hour or so the picture quality is as good as new.Mukul S. Anand directed this movie who died in 1997.Direction isn't what you can call deft its more like as it was with most movies in 80's."Agneepath" poem seems quite meaningless here and deliberately thrust upon.But the dialogues of Kader Khan are definitely better than its remake.Here Vijay's father is played by Alok Nath fresh from his success on small screen with Ramesh Sippy's "Buniyaad".Vijay of childhood is played by Master Manjunath who had done great recently in "Malgudi Days" T.V. series on Doordarshan.Alok Nath is definitely much better than the person who plays Vijay's father in the sequel.

Though Amitabh won Best Actor National award for this movie,he looks pretty aged and tired here his eyes are deliberately made to look red which gives him a more haggard appearance.Hrithik is definitely much better.Rohini Hattangadi who was 13 years younger than Amitabh played his mother,she gives a controlled emotionless performance.Zarina Wahab is definitely better in the sequel,though her screen time is lesser.Neelam does a wonderful job here lifting up the spirits of the film and definitely thousand times better than the girl that plays sister in the remake,who is completely ineffectual.Krishnan Iyer MA is an iconic character in Agneepath played by Mithun Chakravarthy who was then in his top form giving 11 films in 1990 including Agneepath.In the sequel this character is removed.

 

Madhavi plays Amitabh's love interest and gives a wonderfully controlled performance.She does seem a bit better than Priyanka.She also turned up 7 movies in 1990 including this one.Danny plays "Kancha Seth" here and is incomparable with the new one,he is quite classy.DVD is of 167 minutes and seemed to be heavily edited lots of scenes unscrupulously edited out,Madhvi's scenes do seem abrupt and some others too.Movie does not seem to be professionally made.

Tinnu Anand is in great form here and plays a drunkard,lots of laughter as he hurls choicest obscenities on villains.He had just directed Amitabh in "Shahenshah".Vikram Gokhale is good enough with so proper Hindi.Archana Puran Singh is in a cameo as Danny's mistress and is shot dead as she was going into witness against him in court.Sharat Saxena is funny and wonderful here as the villain named Terelin.Shakti Kapoor too is in cameo in song "Alibaba".Asha Sachdev gets good dialogues to speak as she plays the village "Tawaif".Bob Christo too comes good he gave 11 movies in 1990.Goga Kapoor with his booming voice is so good here.

Pravin Bhatt's cinematography is just marvelous as evident by beautiful scenes shot in Mauritius.The whole drive scene until Amitabh's ship gets bombed is wonderfully executed.Beautiful trees in full bloom with red blossoms flank the road,lush green fields and clear blue skies and lively dancing going around near Danny's hideout on a lovely beach with sparkling sea waves make this scene a joy to behold.


I had watched few scenes from the movie earlier over the years and had found Amitabh not at his best here.Watching this movie now in entirety one can say its flawed but at least I found a lovely song like "Kisko tha Pata" to hum and this wonderfully beautiful drive scene.Though many consider it a classic and Amitabh must have impressed people for he won many accolades for this movie.There's this story too how he altered his speech or accent during dubbing,think it was changed a second time.Mukul S.Anand's direction too is more like those commercial revenge pot-boilers we had then.For me I think the remake is surely an improvement over this 1990 film.