Gangaajal (2003)

An IPS officer motivates and leads a dysfunctional, corrupt police force of Tezpur to fight against the corrupt politician.

Director:

Prakash Jha

Writer:

Prakash Jha (screenplay)

Stars:

Ajay Devgn, Gracy Singh, Mohan Joshi

3 wins & 26 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Ajay Devgn	...	Amit Kumar
Gracy Singh	...	Anuradha
Mohan Joshi	...	Sadhu Yadav
Yashpal Sharma	...	Sunder Yadav
Akhilendra Mishra	...	DSP Bhurelal
Mukesh Tiwari	...	Bachcha Yadav
Ayub Khan	...	Inspector Shaheed Khan
Chetan Pandit	...	ASI Bholanath Pandey
Anup Soni	...	Inspector Neelkanth Tiwari (as Anoop Soni)
Mohan Agashe	...	DIG Verma
Yash Pathak	...	Boy Ravi
Payal Srivastava	...	Rabidas
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Daya Shankar Pandey
Manoj Rajdutt	...	Businessmen
Dilnawaz Shaikh	...	Singer / Dancer (as Manyata)

Storyline

An SP Amit Kumar who is given charge of Tezpur police station in Bihar. The area is full of corruption, inefficiency, bribery, nepotism, favoritism and crime with help from the local police. Gradually Amit realizes that the local politician Sadhu Yadav is the one who benefits the most out of it. Amit arrests Sunder Yadav, Sadhu's son. While Sunder is released soon, some police officers, get frustrated with the system, and pour acid into the eyes of two of Yadav's men, blinding them. A hue and cry is raised by the media, crime almost comes to a standstill, and the police are regarded with respect. SP Amit Kumar must now put an end to this kind of situation.

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Plot Keywords:

police | corruption | blinding | police station | battle against the system | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Site

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Release Date:

29 August 2003 (India)

Filming Locations:

Wai, Maharashtra, India

Company Credits

Production Co:

Entertainment One Pvt. Ltd., Prakash Jha Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

157 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The title of the movie (Gangaajal) means water of the sacred river Ganga in India. Water of the Ganges is supposed to be blessed and anyone who touches it gets cleansed of his/her sins. In the movie acid that is poured into the eyes of suspected criminals is called 'gangaajal' by the cops because they are supposedly cleansing the society.

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Goofs

During the drinking scene before Ajay goes to bash the goons creating a ruckus, he has a lit cigarette but when he enters he control room he is seen lighting a new one.

User Reviews

One of the rare good good-cop bad-cop movie

I never expected to be impressed by this movie, going by the cover which had the regular in-your-face expressions from an outraged hero and a heroin with sadness written all over her face. It seemed like just another good-cop bad-guy movie.

It was pleasantly surprising for me. Ajay Devgan, who is the only interesting and important character in this movie has given a more-than-decent performance. The song are minimal and this keeps the movie riveting for most part. The role of the villain is weak and did not develop into anything significant.

However the dialogue delivery of AD and his no nonsense style of acting (or of the director) adds to the effect of the movie. The final dialogue: when AD has the villains under his feet and whole city is all set to burn them, AD says "I am not protecting them from you, but I am protecting you from them. It is my duty to make sure you don't descend to the level of these villains. Jaisi Janatha, Waisi Police. If you are corrupt, what do you expect the police to be?"

It is overall a good movie to Watch. A similar movie, Shool, was made by Ram Gopal Verma with Manoj Bajpai. It is not nearly as entertaining as this.