Be it through comedy, drama or horror, movies that have been able to make me introspect and question the very fabric of the society that I inhabit have always interested me. Sakura nova all cg. Anything that shines a light on what we are doing with our lives and how it is impacting everything around us in ways that make me squirm in my seat automatically enters my 'best of' list. Because, hey, comfort is so passé. However, for some reason or the other, Kundan Shah's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro has always gone under my radar.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India and made on a meager budget of 8-9 lakhs with then non-stars like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Ravi Baswani, Bhakti Barve, Satish Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Kaushik, and Neena Gupta. And upon its initial theatrical release, the movie bombed like anything. However, as years went by, the satirical take on the rampant corruption in Indian politics, bureaucracy, news media and business, started gaining popularity. But it was only after truckloads of convincing from a fellow Mashable India colleague that I sat down to watch it and, to be honest, I didn't quite like it.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro ( 6 ) IMDb 8.4 2h 11min 1983 ALL Two photographers, who are employed by a newspaper editor to expose the scandalous activities of the rich, come across corruption by a builder and accidentally photograph a murder. Released in 1983, the movie with its scenes, characters, story and dialogues from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro has a fan following of its own even after over three decades of its release on the big screens. Starring actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah and Neena Gupta, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro has been appreciated for. Two photographers working for a magazine editor, inadvertently click a murder in action and realise that the killer is the builder they have been assigned to spy on. They then seek justice for the dead man in a world plagued by corruption.

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Okay, before everyone comes at me with their pitch-forks, allow me to talk about what I did like about the movie, which features the combined efforts of Ranjit Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Sudhir Mishra, Kundan Shah and even Vidhu Vinod Chopra on the writing table. Firstly, the idea to combine Mahabharata (the Draupadi Cheer-Haran episode to be specific), Salim-Anarkali, and the controversy around the murder of Municipal Commissioner, D'Mello is simply epic. On the surface, it is hilarious because, unlike the in-movie audience, you are aware that the characters are not a part of the play and are trying to keep up the charade by conversing in mythological terms. And it becomes all the more funny when you realise the route they've taken to point fingers at the patriarchal nature of one of the most revered textbooks in Indian history.

Secondly, I found myself lauding the relevance of the subject matter of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. It went after civil engineering companies that continuously cheats while building bridges, roads, airports, dams, you name it. And all these years later we are seeing bridges collapsing in Mumbai and West Bengal and nobody getting prosecuted even though such incidents are causing the death of hundreds people. In addition to that, it managed to show the futility of fighting over what's right when the rich are dominating a major section of the narrative. Funnily enough, that has become the reality as a January report has shown that India's richest 1% are in control of 73% of the country's wealth, thereby controlling what's true and what's not via news, social media and more.

But apart from these two factors, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro failed to make a mark for me due to some technical and storytelling choices. Let's get over the technical stuff first. The pacing felt tiring, thereby dampening the pointed intent of the story. Running at a whopping 2 hours and 12 minutes, every gag, every story beat, and practically every scene overstays its welcome. And that might be the case because back when the movie was released, people weren't conditioned enough to catch every subtle detail in the script. But since many movies have taught me (and a huge chunk of the modern movie-going audience) to catch the subtext in the story within a few seconds, the repetitive nature of establishing the moral stance of the film felt grating.

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Coming to the storytelling choices, I am surprised that everybody has conveniently forgotten about the misogynistic undertones of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron which are played off as gags. At the beginning of the film, Ravi Baswani's Sudhir Mishra openly harasses a girl in an attempt to draw her to his shop and gets whacked and that is played for laughs. When Baswani and Naseeruddin's characters meet Bhakti Barve's Shobha Sen, without even trying to know her true identity, they make very blatant attempts to sleep with her in their studio, which again is portrayed as a comedic scene. However, I couldn't bring myself to forgive the movie for keeping these elements after claiming to be one of the most 'woke' films of 1983 and in the history of Indian cinema.

In conclusion and in my opinion only, this multi-starrer continues to be a fun film that critiques the hypocrisy of nearly every thing that makes the foundation of our society. And you'll be able to appreciate every other element in it if you can look past the problematic treatment of its female characters. However, if you do so, you'll be doing the very thing that all the antagonists in the movie are telling the protagonists to do: jaane bhi do yaaro.

Cover artwork by Dhawal Bhanushali/Mashable India

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron 2007

TOPICS: Entertainment, Comedy, Funny, Misogyny, Sexual Harassment, Films, Genesis by Mashable India, Satish Shah, Bollywood, comedy film, Bollywood celebrities, Satish Kaushik, Bollywood Movies, Political-satire, Naseeruddin Shah, Anniversary, Om Puri, Comedy-movies, Comedy-drama, Analysis, Neena Gupta, Pankaj Kapur, Satire

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Hd Movie