Apaharan
Dir- Prakash Jha
Cast- Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu, Mohan Agashe, Yashpal Sharma, Mukesh Tiwari, Chetan Pandit and Nana Patekar.
Written by- Prakash Jha, Sridhar Raghavan, Anjum Rajabali and Manoj Tyagi.

 The fascination of Bollywood filmmakers with the underworld comes with a twist in Apaharan, a movie that deals not with extortion or drugs but with kidnapping for ransom. And Prakash Jha chooses a rural town in Bihar for this setting where local gang lords rule with a political-legal-criminal nexus all the way up to the top leading to the Chief Minister of the State.

 To exploit this theme, Jha pits a battle between a son Ajay Devgan and father Mohan Agashe. It is the story of a tumultuous and complex relationship between a father and a son set against the thriving kidnapping industry. Ajay aspires for a job in the police force but he soon realizes that the only way he can get this is by greasing the palms of the recruiters. His frustrations arise when his father intervenes to foil his attempts. But Ajay has already drawn himself into a web of deceit, killing and corruption when the money that he borrowed for this purpose is asked back by none other than the local goons. Seeing no solution insight, Ajay and his friends hatch a plan to kidnap a local official but bungle up the plot as utter novices. This lands him in jail and the predictability of the movie is pretty obvious from here. He decides to jump into a life of crime and kidnapping and soon joins the rank of a local minority leader Tabrez Alam (Nana Patekar), Gaya Singh (Yashpal Sharma) who operates from within the jail. In the second half, Jha introduces  Anwar Khan(Mukesh Tiwari), an honest police officer constantly at odds with  Tabrez for acting against a fellow Muslim; Dinkar Pandey(Chetan Pandit), a scheming home-minister who is constantly playing a double game ; and Shukla(Ehsan Khan), a corrupt cop who crosses floors to where the money is. Jha also manages to introduce the politics of religion where Tabrez uses his minority card and doesn’t blink an eye to justify his actions and motivate his cronies in the name of Islam.

Redemption of course being a big part of Indian Cinema now catches up with Ajay. So how does this happen and to what purpose makes up the rest of the film. Some fine acting by all the stars except that Bipasha Basu as his girlfriend early on, is barely seen later in the film. Ajay Devgan turns in a fine performance so does Nana Patekar. All in all, a deftly made film tackling the issues of moral corruption among the youth and the system that encourages them to lead such a life.

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