Nayak (2001 film)

Nayak
Directed by	S. Shankar
Produced by	A.M. Rathnam
Written by	S. Shankar Anurag Kashyap
Starring	Anil Kapoor Rani Mukerji Amrish Puri Paresh Rawal Johnny Lever Saurab Shukla
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	K. V. Anand
Editing by	B. Lenin V. T. Vijayan
Studio	Sri Surya Films
Release date(s)	September 7, 2001 (2001-09-07)
Running time	181 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	25 crore

Nayak: The Real Hero is a 2001 Indian movie starring Anil Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. It was directed by S. Shankar. The film is a remake of S. Shankar's earlier released Tamil film Mudhalvan (1999). The film's score and soundtrack, composed by A. R. Rahman, were dubbed from Mudhalvan into Hindi for the film. It was critically acclaimed, although it could not do big business. Overtime, it has been considered an underrated film with superb performances by Anil Kapoor and Paresh Rawal.

Plot

The story focuses on Shivaji Rao (Anil Kapoor). He happens to be an ambitious TV cameraman, working for “Q TV” along with his friend Topi (Johnny Lever). His opposite person is Balraj Chauhan (Amrish Puri), the Chief Minister (CM) of the state. During riots triggered by a fight between some college students and bus drivers, which threaten to touch upon the touchy issue of castes, the CM reveals his unwillingness to take strong action to quell the violence for fear of estranging any of his political bases. To set things right, he then appears on a live interview with Shivaji, who had coincidentally captured the CM's earlier unwillingness to take a stand, on camera.

In this interview in response to Shivaji's pointed questioning about the poor working of his government, the CM ducks the question by instead talking about how difficult his job is, and by challenging Shivaji to be the CM for one day. Shivaji reluctantly accepts the seat of the Chief Minister in the place of Chauhan. Educated and vigilant, Shivaji moves fast. He takes care of almost every aspect in a day's time, giving the slum their rightful apartments and getting jobs for the unemployed, suspending inefficient and corrupt government officers. All the way he is assisted by the secretary, Bansal (Paresh Rawal). As the last act of the day he gets Chauhan arrested as he is the root of all the corruption. But Chauhan bails out, passes an ordinance to nullify all orders passed by Shivaji when he was the CM. Taking Shivaji's success as an insult, Chauhan sends goons to get him killed and destroys his house.

Meanwhile Shivaji falls in love with an innocent village girl called Manjari (Rani Mukherjee). But her father (Shivaji Satam) wants his daughter's suitor to be a government civil worker. So after his tenure as a one-day CM he starts preparing for the Indian Civil Service Examination when his earlier secretary comes in and tells him that Shivaji's popularity has rocketed sky-high and people want him to become the next CM of the state. He refuses but then Chauhan's henchman attacks the Q TV news agency. Bansal then tells Shivaji that he has become a part of politics and Chauhan will never leave him at peace and Shivaji's lawsuit against Chauhan is bound to fail. But Manjari's father dissuades Shivaji from joining politics. However, on seeing the people’s plight and Bansal's advice he agrees to stand in the elections.

In the ensuing state elections, he wins by full majority. But Manjari’s father, angered by Shivaji's decision, refuses to let his daughter marry him. Here, Chauhan’s political allies desert him causing his defeat. On becoming the chief minister, Shivaji brings about lots of improvements and quickly becomes an idol in the people’s eyes. However his growing popularity is threatened continuously by Chauhan who uses his henchmen to kill him or at least tarnish is image as a public hero. But Shivaji promptly answers by digging out all accusations against Chauhan and his allies. This, however, causes a reunion of Chauhan and his allies. After a failed attempt on Shivaji's life by hiring an assassin, a bomb is detonated at his home killing his parents.

In the final attempt Chauhan orders his P.A. to destroy law and order and cause bomb explosions in various parts of the city. But a priest is able to overhear a few men planning to detonate bombs. He immediately notifies Shivaji's office via the "Complaint Box" department. Chauhan's P.A. is arrested and under tactical inquiry by Shivaji and his secretary, he discloses the location of the 4 bombs. A Bomb Squad is able to defuse 3 bombs, but the 4th one explodes before they could reach to it. Chauhan, however, uses this success against Shivaji by blaming the young CM for the bomb. Seeing no way out, Shivaji summons Chauhan to the secretariat and creates a situation such that it would seem as if Chauhan was there to shoot Shivaji but failed. Shivaji takes up a gun, but pointing it to his arm shoots himself, and then hands over the gun to Chauhan. Now getting to know that Shivaji had set a trap, an enraged Chauhan attempts to shoot Shivaji, but his shot misses. The security guards then shoot down Chauhan killing him. Shivaji, secretly tells Bansal the truth and says that "finally they have turned me into a politician too" but Bansal believes that Chauhan deserved death saying "he instituted politics for a long time for corruption and evil; you did it only once for good" . Manjari's father also comes to realize that Shivaji is in fact a great man who sees duty before everything else and allows Manjari to marry him.

In the end, the city develops under the governance of Shivaji Rao and his colleagues. The complaint box, where people were supposed to fill in their complaints and information about various threats anonymously, is shown to be empty, signifying that the reasons to be afraid have been taken care of.

Cast

• Anil Kapoor as Shivaji Rao
• Rani Mukerji as Manjari
• Amrish Puri as Balraj Chauhan (Chief Minister)
• Paresh Rawal as Bansal
• Pooja Batra as Laila
• Saurabh Shukla as Pandurang
• Shivaji Satam as Manjari's Father
• Johnny Lever as Topi
• Sushmita Sen in Special Appearance.

Crew

• Director - S. Shankar
• Producer - A.M. Rathnam
• Dialogues - Anurag Kashyap
• Story & Screenplay - S. Shankar
• Music - A.R. Rahman
• Cinematography - K.V. Anand
• Editor - B. Lenin - V. T. Vijayan
• Art - Thotta Tharani
• Lyrics - Anand Bakshi
• Choreographer - Raju Sundaram, Ahmed Khan
• Stunts - Kanal Kannan
• Co-Director - Vijayakumar Raichurs
• Associate Directors - B. Chintu Mohapatra, Raj Acharya
• Assistant Directors - Muthu Vadugu, G. Anandha Narayanan, K.R.Mathivanan, K. Balachery
• Visual Effects - Pentamedia Graphics (P) Ltd., Cytura (Florida, USA)
• Costumes - Manish Malhotra, Nalini Sriram, Shefali (Anil Kapoor), Rohit Bal (Rani Mukherji)
• Make-up - K.M.Sarathkumar
• Sound Design - H. Sridhar
• Sound Effects - C. Sethu, Balu
• Banner - Sri Surya Movies

Soundtrack

Nayak: The Real Hero
Soundtrack album by A.R.Rahman
Released	2001 (2001)
Recorded	Panchathan Record Inn
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	38:32
Label	T-Series
Producer	A.R. Rahman
A.R.Rahman chronology
One 2 Ka 4 (2001) Nayak: The Real Hero (2001) Love You Hamesha (2001)

The soundtrack for the film was composed by A.R.Rahman. He reused all the songs except "Mudhalvane" song, from the original film Mudhalvan. A new track "Saiyyan" was added. The track "Shakalaka Baby" was reused in the musical Bombay Dreams also. The lyrics for the pretuned songs were written by veteran poet Anand Bakshi and this was one of his last films before he died in 2002.

The audio rights were bought by T-Series for 6 crore. Comparing with the Tamil version which was a massive success, the album did only an average business.^[1]

#	Song	Singer(s)
1	"Chalo Chale Mitwa"	Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy
2	"Saiyyan"	Sunidhi Chauhan, Hans Raj Hans
3	"Chalo Chale Purva"	Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Swarnalatha
4	"Ruki Sukhi Roti"	Shankar Mahadevan, Alka Yagnik
5	"Shakalaka Baby"	Vasundhara Das,Praveen Mani,Shiraz Uppal
6	"Tu Accha Lagta Hain"	Hariharan, Kavita Krishnamurthy
7	"Chidiya Tu Hoti Toh"	Abhijeet,Sanjeevani

References

1. ^ http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/MediaArchive/art.nsf/(docid)/D610F64FA9D20DA565256B0C003EA5BA

External links

• Nayak: The Real Hero at the Internet Movie Database