Movie Review - Saheb

I always wanted to write movie reviews. I was enormously impressed by the movie reviews which are published in The Times Of India. The idea was more appealing than anything else, watch movies for free, write about them and also get paid for it. Being a movie buff, this seemed liked the best job.
I didn’t really think that this would be my first review, but I came across one of the songs from this movie today and felt I had to express my thoughts about it. The movie I am talking about is “Saheb”. This movie was a remake of a Bengali movie. It was later remade in several other languages owing to the popularity of the Hindi version. Anil Kapoor, then a budding star and ready to take on all kinds of role, portrayed Saheb.He really did an impressive job portraying such a sensitive role of an aspiring goalkeeper and an unsuccessful son. The story line was pretty simple and was one of the biggest scoring points of the movie. The cast was talented to the hilt with Utpal Dutt (taking a detour from his image of a comedian) playing a brooding father, Rakhee as the doting sister-in-law, Amrita Singh as the bubbly girlfriend, Deven Varma as the unsuccessful and funny scriptwriter. The other characters were also finely etched and well performed.
The story dealt with the day-to-day problems of a lower middle class joint family. It also brought out the economic divide between the rich and poor, which existed in the 80’s in a commendable manner. The crux of the story was the struggle of a person trying to choose an alternate career i.e. sports when all his family wanted him to do is get through his graduation and get a decent job. The story depicted a lot of pathos before coming to a happy ending. Saheb sacrifices his ambition to become a goalkeeper (and also one of his kidneys) to save the day for his father. The bonding between Saheb and his father is understated which works beautifully. The movie has all the shades required by a typical commercial movie but it stands out. A special mention for the music and the rocking number, “Yaar Bina Chain Kaha Re” (its still being remixed by the new age DJ’s). Bappi Lahiri has done a fabulous job as was expected as he was in supreme form those days. If you’ve not seen the movie rent the DVD today.

Cast: Anil Kapoor, Rakhee, Amrita Singh, Utpal Dutt, Deven VarmaDirector: Anil Ganguly Music Director: Bappi Lahiri Year: 1985