Review of Parinda (1989) by Luke T — 28 Sep 2016

Vidhu Vinod Chopra directs and stars in this action drama about two brothers caught on different sides of a gang war.

One of the most serious movies to have been made in India in the year of this release, it once again proves that Bollywood can have a serious side and this film is another perfect example.

Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff give very good performances as the two brothers Karan and Kishen, living in Bombay when Karan falls in love with Paro (Madhuri Dixit). However Karan leaves India and starts embarks in a life of crime and there is good support to be had from Nana Patekar as Anna, the drug dealer who helps him achieve this. Dixit is superb in her role as Paro and she proved that her terrific performance in Tezaab was definitely not a one-off.

Chopra foes a terrific job directing the film as the atmosphere is very tense all the way through the film, while he also gives a good performance in his role as the corpse. The script is very well written by Shivkumar Subramaniam while the camerawork is excellent and set are very decent to look at.

The film deservedly won 5 Filmfare Awards - Best Actor (Shroff), Director (Chopra), Screenplay (Subramaniam), Supporting Actor (Patekar) and Editing (Renu Saluja) - the latter two categories also winning National Film Awards.

Overall, this is one very tense but well-acted film that although was not accepted as India's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, it is definitely one of Chopra's best films as director and certainly the best 18 film made in the year of this release.