Johnny Gaddaar

<p>The film starts on a rainy night with a conversation between four cops in a police van, patrolling the streets of . A car narrowly misses, colliding into them on the road, brakes, and then continues on towards a house with iron gates. A man in a jacket gets out of the car, heads towards the garage, and opens the roller shutter door when he is shot from behind multiple times. At the same time, the cops in the van receive an alert on the radio that gunshots have been heard somewhere in the vicinity, and they ask the driver to head towards the location of the gunshots. The entire movie is then shown as a flashback, building up to the present shooting and scene of the cops in the van. The story is about a gang of five that run a gambling club and conduct other underhand deals. The five members are Vikram, Seshadri, Shardul, Prakash, and Shiva. When one of Seshadri’s police contacts from , Kalyan, informs him on the phone about “French furniture” (code word for drugs) worth Rs. 5 crore that he can offer him for Rs. 2.5 crore, Seshadri calls for all five members to contribute Rs. 50 lacs each to set the deal in motion. Based on Shardul’s promise of being able to sell the furniture for more than Rs. 5 crore, each member anticipates a profit of a further Rs. 50 lacs each, at least. They agree that Shiva is to take the money to Bengaluru by train, meet Kalyan, make the exchange, and return on the same train. Vikram, who is dating Shardul’s wife Mini and desperately wants to emigrate to Canada with her, plans to steal the money from Shiva in the train by using to make him unconscious. In the pretext of going to for business work, he goes about his plot, driving to (where he uses the name Johnny G to check into a hotel), then takes a flight to Goa. In Goa, he meets advocate Gomes, who is Seshadri’s friend, to get his work done and to serve as an alibi later, if required. He makes sure the work is half done, flies back to Mumbai, and checks in to a hotel before boarding the train that Shiva takes, the train to Bengaluru en route to Pune. But plans go wrong, and Vikram ends up killing Shiva, who unmasks him before going unconscious. Now Sheshadri, Kalyan, Prakash, and Shardul, one-by-one, find out Vikram’s truth and are killed by him in cold blood. Prakash’s wife mistakes Vikram for Shardul and kills him, thinking that Shradul had killed Prakash. The story ends in a cliff hanger and we do not know who gets the money. Raghavan has described the film as a where the audience knows right from the outset what transpires and who the likely culprit is. The opening credits dedicate the film to the Indian director and writer . The film is a tribute to Vijay Anand’s influence on the Hindi noir/thriller genre. It pays tribute to him in a scene in which Anand’s film is being watched by a character. At the lobby of a hotel room, the receptionist is seen watching Vijay Anand’s film , starring . It is from the scene of that film that this one gets its title. When the female lead is introduced she is reading ‘s , which was later made into a film directed by , starring . While the story is not based on any of James Hadley Chase’s novels, it does follow a similar plot line. There are numerous references to within the film, the lead character himself is seen holding a copy of one of Chase’s books. Director has presented the same genre in his previous venture as well. The film also makes multiple references to classic and also shows scenes of a major plot sequence of the film. There are multiple tributes to the actor himself. While dying, Dharmendra plays the song “Mera Gora Rang Le Le” – his character’s favourite song sung by the character’s wife (Sonia Rakkar) in the film, which is from his film in which played in the film. They are from , and . There are a couple of references to Hollywood films too, for example when Shiva is introduced in the film, he’s watching ‘s last film, . And Dharmendra’s line “It’s not the age. It’s the mileage” echoes a line from the film . Apart from the note-counting scene obviously inspired from , there is a reference to as well as in the scene where the female lead is assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle. The colour Red is used predominantly in the film, as a homage to . Raghavan himself had confessed wanting to shoot the whole film in . But the main game is that Raghavan’s inspiration for the plot and characterization was not ‘s film . Raghavan employs a by implying that his film as a tribute to and also adding in and as distraction, while the fact is that the film was an adaptation of the 1963 French film (The Corrupt) by which was based on the 1962 French crime novel by Alain Reynaud Fourton though there are also similarities with the ‘s classic – in the plot elements like the ex-conman character, the cheating wife and no-one escape climax – which are not coincidental. The only stark difference is that Johnny isn’t the gaddar (the traitor). The film has fifteen songs and two remixes composed by (soundtrack) and Daniel B George (score), with lyrics by . The album was met with high critical acclaim upon its release. The soundtrack was co produced by composers Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and , which is first of its kind in the history of Bollywood. The album was released on 13 September 2007 at , , . , , and were present at the launch among others. Director Sriram Raghavan approached S-E-L to score a single for the film. As they were discussing, came up with a which Sriram felt fits the theme of the movie, which then turned out to be the title song “Johnny Gaddaar”. Then they decided to go for another song, which was to be picturised in a club setting. Sriram wanted it to have an early ’70s feel, along the lines of the famous song, “Duniya Main”. Hence they jammed and came up with the second track, the rich and vibrant “Dhoka”. Sriram had seen rapper on TV and was impressed with her. So he asked her and the trio to jam together, and they came up with the final song of the album, “Move Your Body”. The album includes and versions of the tracks “Johnny Gaddaar” and “Move Your Body”. The album was met with high praise from critics upon release. Raja Sen of , who awarded the soundtrack four and a half stars was ecstatic about the soundtrack, ” “. Joginder Tuteja of gave the album a three-and-a-half stars, stating, ” “. The soundtrack featured in the “Top 10 music Albums of the year” list by , which said .</p>