Relive The Making Of India's Best Kidnapping Thriller Till Date!

It was more than 38 years ago in 1978  - that India was treated to its biggest and best kidnapping thriller till date. Inkaar.

This movie was directed by a new director on the block Raj N Sippy who would later be popularly called Raj Sippy , his best was to come a little later in the musical drama called Satte Pe Satta . The movie opens with a upright Haridas Chaudhary played by Dr.Sreeram Lagoo being confronted by a hungry for profits board of directors who want him to produce substandard shoes and make more profits. It was a very short opening scene but if you were to watch it today it points out to the biggest unanswered weaknesses of capitalism that sometime huge advertising does not mean a great product. Haridas Chaudhary returns home for his anniversary party. Golden hearted that he is , he shares a lot of affection with his driver’s son as much as he does for his own son. In a marked display of this affection he brings the same shirt for the driver’s son for the party as for his own son. It is this large heartedness which traps the driver’s son into a nightmare.

As people are busy enjoying a song and party at Hairdas’ bungalow , a kidnapper abducts the driver’s son in a case of mistaken identity. He thinks that boy is Haridas’ son. It is then that briefly Haridas’ not so great side is revealed . Relieved that the kidnapper will now not harm his son and it is the driver’s son who is kidnapped he simply decides to inform the cops despite the warning of the yet to be revealed kidnapper and to the shock and dismay of his wife , driver and his sister Geeta.

In walks Vinod Khanna , in what , my opinion remains his best cop role ever. As CID office Amarnath Gill or Amar.Amar is a great blend of a shrewd hard cop who has a hurting past  , he is a jilted lover and in a strange twist of Destiny , Haridas is the reason. The woman who eventually leaves Amar is Haridas’ sister Geetha and she does it because of her dominating elder brother because he feels marrying a CID inspector is below their staus. Now Haridas needs Amar who thankfully is not vengeful about his past. He doggedly goes after the kidnapper.

The kidnapper is played brilliantly by the numro uno baddie of the 70s –Amjad Khan. It was Amjad’s bad luck that every bad guy role that he did was to eventually compared with Gabbar , but again in my very very personal and biased opinion. The psycho ,vengeful , ruthless and sadist Raj Singh could have given Gabbar a run for his money had this movie been mounted at the kind of scale Sholay was. Raj Singh is as much a psycho as much is he cold and rational. Amply displayed in the drink bar brawl which has place in indian cinema’s history (will tell you later why) . He does not trust even his partners in crime and keeps an eye on them. He has absolutely no remorse in treating a trapped kid like a rabbit and pulling him out of the bed just by his hair. I was a kid when I first saw Inkaar and I remember the shivers that scene gave me. I had then closed my eyes.  Raj Singh was pure cold terror.

The motive behind all this was – Raj Singh is a disgruntled ex employee of Haridas’s shoe company and he does the kidnapping to settle scores with Haridas. The brilliant criminal brain has a fool proof plan. Only destiny plants him against the shrewd fox Amar. Amar digs out clues from where none exist my absolute favourite is the piece of the torn handkerchief. No am not telling you how he gets it – go see the movie.

Inkaar also has some brilliant scenes in how cops play on criminal psychology and trap them. The letter to Raj Singh on the platform while he could have escaped is the greatest plot point of this thriller.

The other high point of Inkaar remains its cat and mouse moments , again the chase of one of the suspects from the dry cleaner’s shop to the ultimate hide out where the kid is kept was pure edge of the seat. The one where Raj Singh takes the bag away from right under the nose of the cops is hilarious as well as super goosebumps scene. Inkaar had a racy bloody plot.The other one being the money bag being flung out of the running train as cops helplessly watch.

Another beauty of Inkaar is its sub plots are so superbly mixed with the main plot that you never know when from the family bonding and tragic love tale of Amar the movie keeps going to the kidnapped kid and coming back. You are on a roller coaster and though the word did not exist in popular slang then , the director does not give you a nano-second to think.

Amar at some point is able to rescue the kid but Raj Singh escapes with the money. How Amar gets both the man and the money back is a perfect icing on the cake moment. Raj Singh’s death in the climax again I daresay is only second to Gabbar Singh’s death from the original sholay .

Inkaar is also a story of how basic human values will always win . Through Haridas Chaudhary we learn that sometimes your goodness will come back and win you over back from the wrong route you have taken. Inkaar was also ahead of its times as it showed us glimpses of company board room politics for the first time. Inkaar was surely ahead of its times. If you were to watch it today it will have the capability to entertain you. The movie even today does not look dated.

A mention of Inkaar would be unfair and incomplete without the mention of its music. Rajesh Roshan was in supreme form in this one .His background score , like Sholay , lifted this movie to a different tangent all together. The score which starts right at the point of the money being thrown out of the running train was super foot tapping stuff. The song “dil ki kali” was played at umpteen family occasions. The king of them all was the mungda mungda song and dance of Helen in the bar where Raj Singh is having a drink planning his next move.This song was and is a party chartbuster even till date. That the song is bigger than the brilliant movie is the biggest testimony to the legendary Rajesh Roshan.

Watch Inkaar if you have not yet done it. They have not made a half good kidnapping thriller since this one came.