Director: Ramesh Sharma; Writer: Gulzar; Producer: K. Bikram Singh, P.K. Tiwari; Cinematographer: Subrata Mitra; Editor: Renu Saluja; Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, A.K. Hangal, Manohar Singh, M.K. Raina, Farrokh Mehta
Duration: 02:07:30; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 119.276; Saturation: 0.061; Lightness: 0.246; Volume: 0.105; Cuts per Minute: 10.462
Summary: A political thriller examining the links between
crime and politics in a north Indian state. The
editor of the English-language New Delhi
Times, Vikas Pande (Kapoor) has to confront
the politician Ajay Singh (Puri) who is
associated with a powerful lobby of illicit
liquor manufacturers. The trail of murders,
sequestrations in insane asylums, beatings and
the instigation of communal riots by political
henchmen eventually leads to the corrupt chief
minister, D.N. Trivedi. Made in the style of
Costa-Gavras’s films and of Pakula’s All the
President’s Men (1976), the film is inspired by
the case of the Indian Express whose editor
Arun Shourie exposed the criminal links of
Maharashtra’s chief minister, A.R. Antulay. The
owner of the Indian Express, R.N. Goenka, is
the figure evoked in the film by Vikas’s boss,
the publisher Jagannath Poddar (M. Singh). The
film faced official censorship when
Doordarshan initially refused to broadcast it.
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