Naseeruddin Shah Movies

An embittered policeman pushed far beyond the brink of tolerance, Officer Kapil (Naseeruddin Shah) grows not simply disgusted with the Indian drug trade (and the burgeoning problem of drug abuse in Indian society) but hell-bent on cleaning it up, as a one-man vigilante. So begins Pankaj Prasar's ultra-violent action opus Jalwa (1987). Kapil hits the inner city, arsenal in tow, and vows to exterminate the one drug lord whom he pinpoints as responsible for the slew of recreational drugs plaguing the Indian streets. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A landmark work of Indian feminism, Spices was made by famed filmmaker Ketan Mehta, featuring Smita Patel in the leading role. Patel, possibly the greatest actress of her generation, plays a woman who faces the oppressive realities of life as a woman in India. Spurning the advance of a corrupt tax collector, the heroine is forced to take refuge in a pepper factory. Spices is a Hindi film with English subtitles. ~ Sean Hurley, All Movie Guide

This film by Indian director Ketan Mehta, whose socially conscious work has been compared to Spike Lee, centers around Holi, the Festival of Fire in India. A group of college boys are dissatisfied with their school's policies, including the announcement that they won't be getting the day off from classes for the holiday. The students are angered, and one of them is expelled for injuring the principal's nephew in a fight. The students gather in resistance, and as events and tension escalate, the students turn against the school and burn their furniture and textbooks in an impromptu festival of fire. Loyalties among the students are tested and broken, and tragedy becomes inevitable. The emotionally charged content of this film, tempered by the emotional distance of Mehta's directorial eye provides a rare glimpse of unrest in India. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

When an Untouchable wins the elections for mayor in his small village in northeastern India, deadly rioting forces an impoverished couple to escape to Calcutta where they can hopefully find work. Instead, they end up sleeping on the streets until they have a chance at earning a little income -- a man has asked them to take his herd of pigs across a fast-moving river. The current is dangerous, and worse, the wife is pregnant and this would not be an easy task even if she were not. Undaunted and desperate, the couple accept the job and enter the river to face their destiny. Both the acting and the cinematography and music are excellent in this slow-paced, but engaging drama from director Goutam Ghose. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This Hindi social drama stars Naseerudin Shah as a family man whose everyday domestic life is turned upside down when he discovers that he has an illegitimate child (Jugal Hansraj) from an affair with a past mistress. When the boy's mother dies, he is sent to live with his father. The child's father attempts to hide the truth from his own daughters, but the past eventually catches up with him. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

First-time filmmaker and director Ashok Ahuja has made a film about a director making a film -- undoubtedly following the adage that it is better to stick with something you know in any attempt at fiction. The director in the film is busy trying to get a writer to agree to work with him on his next project, based on one of the writer's own stories. No matter how persistent he is, the writer does not keep his original promise to join with the director and drops him for another, more lucrative venture. In spite of this setback, the director does not give up and writes and produces his own story. Both his film and this film end at about the same time, as the director is waiting for everyone to come out of the theater -- and give some feedback on his creation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Writer-director-producer J.P. Dutta authored the Indian period drama Umrao Jaan - the epic, three-hour story of a prostitute's travails in 19th century India. Aishwarya Rai stars as the title character; as the film opens, she is an elderly courtesan detailing her life for the benefit of the belletrist Mirza Mohammed Hada Ruswa who plans to document the woman's story for successive generations. As Umrao narrates, the film then flashes back to well over a half-century earlier, when she - originally a young girl, named Ameeran - is born comfortably into an affluent upper middle-class family in the city of Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. Ameeran's path collides with destiny when she is kidnapped at a tender age by her father's enemies, promptly sold into a kotha (or brothel) in the city of Lucknow, and renamed Umrao Jaan. Her superiors teach her music, poetry and dance as part of her courtesan training; when her "debut" finally arrives as a courtesan, the gods are with her, for a young aristocrat, Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan) falls instantly for her, and she for him, and moves into the kotha to consummate their love and begin a life together. Yet all does not go according to plan: disgusted with his son's choice of partner, Nawab's father disowns him, and Khanum, the matriarch of the brothel, quickly refuses to take in an non-paying boarder. With no other options in sight, Nawab is forced to move into a state of exile in the country; meanwhile, as Umrao's heart breaks from the separation, she is greeted by the most unwelcome favors of a local bandit, Faiz Ali (Suneil Shetty), who secretly vows to do everything in his power to win Umrao over and undo the strands of Nawab's devotion to her. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A young auto mechanic named Albert Pinto (Naseeruddin Shah), enjoys an insulated life of semi-privilege in India where his wealthy customers will sometimes let him use their luxury cars, and his charming girlfriend stays in her desired place. All this changes as Pinto is suddenly face-to-face with the injustices of an imbalanced social system. His father (Arvind Deshpande) is badly beaten as he joins a strike at work, and his brother (Dilip Dhawan) ends up in jail for trying to steal food because he has been out of work so long he has no resources left. Rudely awakened by the suffering of his father and brother, Pinto begins to seriously look around him. His change from passive ignorance to active resistance evolves through to the end of the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This charming fable in the genre of New Indian Cinema brings up the issue of the Indian caste system and its entrenched beliefs from several different perspectives. Once upon a time, the story begins, there was a prince who was taken out of the palace at birth by his evil aunt and thought to have died. Instead, he is adopted and raised by a low-caste couple. His lot in life is one with theirs and when he grows up, he champions his family to stop the suffering they have endured because of their particular caste status -- an action of a true prince. There are two versions of the ending of the Folk Tale with the audience welcome to choose their favorite. Enhanced by interesting costumes and incisive dialogue, the fable combines comedy and social commentary as it moves through its classic tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide