Shaan (1980)

The Kumar brothers are a strange lot. While Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) live their life as loveable rogues and confidence men in Bombay, their older brother Shiv (Sunil Dutt) is probably the most dutiful cop in the country, sometimes to the irritation of his wife Sheetal (Rakhee Gulzar).

But if the lifestyle of Vijay and Ravi may be a little suspect, one cannot deny their charm, so they soon find their respective love interests Sunita (Parveen Babi) and Renu (Binidya Goswami) who both work in the same line of business.

Their happy, greedy life is ruined when big brother Shiv is transferred to Bombay. The first thing he does on his arrival is to arrest his brothers for fraud. Both are surprisingly understanding on the matter and, on the day of their release, promise to live a better life from now on.

All would be well, if their incorruptible brother hadn't crossed paths with the most dangerous group of gangsters in Bombay, some smugglers lead by Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Several attempts by Shakal's men on Shiv's life fail, until they finally manage to trap him and transport him to Shakal's home - a classical underground/island lair designed by specifications obviously stolen from the trash can of Victor Blofeld, complete with death traps, a pet crocodile under the movable conference room floor and many other neat and useful things.

Since Shiv doesn't accept an offer by Shakal (who wears a wonderful little uniform and really, really likes being evil) to work for him, he is murdered.

His brothers vow to revenge him, but aren't really sure who the culprit may be, until a man named Rakesh (Shatrughan Sinha), who also is the man who repeatedly tried to kill Shiv visits them and tells them how Shakal blackmailed him into his service with the life of his wife. I must admit that makes a lot of sense. If you want to kill someone, try to get the best carnival marksman in all of India. Shakal wasn't happy with Rakesh's purposefully bad job performance and murdered his wife in the most sadistic and complicated way he could think of.

Rakesh and the two brothers start to interfere with the smugglers' business with all the finesse of a bulldozer. At least they are effective enough in disrupting Shakal's business to have his men more than once try to kill the terrific three and/or their brother's wife and her young daughter.

After many wonderful feats of violence, Mrs. Kumar is finally kidnapped, and the brothers sneak into Shakal's lair in the disguise of a dancing troupe.

What could possibly go wrong?

Compared to Mard, Shaan (directed by Ramesh Sippy, who is also the director of the classic Sholay) is a prime example of logic and coherence - by many people's standards it must still be utterly bizarre.

If I even have standards, they luckily aren't many people's, so I am able to enjoy the ability of Shaan to throw things together because they are fun and not because they are usually used together in Western cinema.

And how could I complain about a film that permanently achieves what it sets out to do? The romance plots are slight but sweet, the comedy good-natured and fun, the action fast and as violent as one could wish for, the evil villain as EVIL! and VILLAINOUS! as they come (and having fun with it), the set design silly-but-sumptuous, the music good, the actors always believable, and the direction absurdly tight for a film that is three hours long.

 

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