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As Risk is ready for release, Deepa Gahlot goes back to the best cop film of them all…

Ardh Satya 1983

The release of Vishram Sawant''s Risk, about an honest cop, brings to mind the film that started it all. A lot of films about policemen had been made before this film, but Govind Nihalani''s Ardh Satya 1983 brought to Hindi cinema a hard-hitting rawness that had not been seen before. It also marked the birth of a new kind of villain - Rama Shetty played by newcomer, stage actor Sadashiv Amrapukar shed all the glamour and suavity associated with villains till then, and played the gangster with a coarse power that was mesmerizing.

Till today, any filmmaker wanting to make realistic films about cops and gangsters pays deliberate or unwitting tribute to Ardh Satya. If the mark of a contemporary classic is that it influences films and filmmakers down the years, then Govind Nihalani''s Ardh Satya would surely count as one.

If films like Satya, Shool, Kurukshetra, Seher, Kagaar, Shiva and many other films have been influenced by Ardh Satya and Vijay Tendulkar''s masterly screenplay; scores of others have borrowed scenes, characters and lines from the film as well as its gritty realistic style.

The success of the film turned Om Puri into a star of the parallel cinema movement, won him several awards and it remains one of his and Nihalani''s most memorable films. It also introduced Sadashiv Amrapurkar to the Hindi screen as a new villain and the character of the South Indian don Rama Shetty that he played has been copied ad nauseum by other filmmakers.

Cops-and-criminal film before Ardh Satya, like for instance Zanjeer Prakash Mehra-Amitabh Bachchan, 1973, had a policeman fighting a personal revenge battle against a gangster. Nihalani''s film took characters from life and brought to the fore things that everyone knew about but did not want to face-- like the gangster-politician-police nexus.

Om Puri played Anant Velankar, who is forced by his brutal father Amrish Puri to join the police force. Velankar is still idealistic about his work and his duty to society. He soon gets frustrated with the corruption of the system, which his colleague Haider Shafi Inamdar accepts with equanimity.

When Velankar arrests three of Rama Shetty''s Sadashiv Amrapurkar men for attacking a constable, Shetty, a Mafia don and a rising politician, merely rings up someone in power to get his men released. Velankar is outraged by this and at his own helplessness.

The rage inside him bubbles out when he savagely beats up a gang of youths arrested for molesting women. When a man in a crowded bus misbehaves with his girlfriend Jyotsna Smita Patil, he thrashes him too. His uncontrollable temper nearly costs him his job, to save which he must approach the very establishment he abhors.

Haider advises him to be pragmatic and avoid confrontation with powerful criminals like Shetty. When one of Shetty''s men is ruthlessly murdered, Velankar goes to arrest Shetty armed with his deathbed declaration, on a murder charge. Shetty makes a phone call and Velankar is ordered to back off. Increasingly frustrated Velankar takes to alcohol, going the way of a former colleague Lobo Naseeruddin Shah who became a drunken vagrant after losing his job.

Shetty stands for the local elections with the full support of the ruling party, while Velankar sinks deeper into a morass when a medal due to him for trapping a dacoit goes to a rival cop. At the police station, Velankar vents his fury on a petty thief accused of stealing a transistor. The man dies in custody and Velankar is suspended.

Haider advises him to seek Shetty''s support. But once in the presence of Shetty Velankar is ashamed of his own cowardice. In a desperate act of protest and realizing that he has nothing left to lose, he kills Shetty and surrenders.

The performances by the entire cast Om Puri, Smita Patil, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Shafi Inamdar were excellent and the film more than deserved all the accolades it won.

Ardh Satya was a fine example of meaningful entertainment ,the success and impact of which not even Nihalani could repeat, though his films remain as socially committed and uncompromising as ever.

Credits

Production: Neo Films
Direction: Govind Nihalani
Story:S.D. Panwalkar
Screenplay: Vijay Tendulkar
Dialogue: Vasant Deo
Camera: Govind Nihalani
Music: Ajit Verman
Art Direction: C.S. Bhatti
Editing: Renu Saluja
Cast: Om Puri, Smita Patil, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Amrish Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Shafi Inamdar,