Nayak

<p>Shivaji Rao is an ambitious television cameraman, working for QTV along with his friend Topi in , . While on his job, he is assigned to record riots triggered by a fight between college students and a bus driver and accidentally records a conversation in which Balraj Chauhan takes an indifferent stand, so as not to lose his voter base. In the riots, Shivaji saves the life of one of the college students there, and it is recorded by Topi. Because of his actions, Shivaji is promoted to senior television presenter. Meanwhile, due to police inaction, there is loss of life and damage to property. Explaining his actions, Chauhan later agrees to do a live interview with Shivaji, during which Shivaji raises these issues and broadcasts the conversation he has recorded. In response to Shivaji’s allegations about the mismanagement by his government, Chauhan redirects the question by saying that his job is not easy. He challenges Shivaji to be the Chief Minister for a day to experience those problems himself. Shivaji reluctantly accepts the challenge. An ordinance is passed in the and Shivaji takes over as CM. Assisted by Bansal, Shivaji handles issues that affect the populace every day. He manages affordable housing and employment for the needy, and he suspends inefficient and corrupt government officials. As the last act of the day, Shivaji has Chauhan arrested, as the latter is the root cause of all the corruption. Later, Chauhan posts bail after assuming back as CM and leaves jail, then passes an ordinance to nullify all orders passed by Shivaji. Insulted by Shivaji’s success as well, Chauhan sends assassins after him, but they only manage to destroy his house. Meanwhile, Shivaji falls in love with Manjari, a naïve, carefree villager whom he met when he was a cameraman. He asks her father to marry her, but her father refuses on the grounds that Shivaji is not employed by the government. As a result, he begins preparing for the . However, Bansal arrives and informs him that his popularity has skyrocketed and that people want him to become the next Chief Minister. He is reluctant at first, but when Chauhan’s henchmen vandalise QTV premises to intimidate him, and the people show their support by thronging to his place in huge numbers, he agrees to do so. Across the ensuing state elections, Shivaji wins by a landslide. Chauhan’s political allies desert him, causing his defeat. Manjari’s father, angered by Shivaji’s decision because he believes that it will render Shivaji careless towards Manjari and is too risky a job for him, refuses to let his daughter marry him. On becoming the Chief Minister, Shivaji effects many improvements and quickly becomes an idol in the people’s eyes. However, his growing popularity is threatened continuously by Chauhan who uses his henchmen to try to kill him or tarnish his image as a public hero. After a failed attempt on Shivaji’s life by hiring an assassin, a bomb is detonated at his home, killing his parents. In a final attempt, Chauhan orders Pandurang to cause bomb explosions in various parts of the city. Accidentally, a priest hears that a few men are planning to detonate bombs and notifies Sivaji’s office via the “complaint box”, which was created by Shivaji to collect letters from the public about their complaints. Pandurang is arrested and, under tactical inquiry by Shivaji and Bansal, discloses the location of the four bombs. A squad is able to defuse three bombs, but the fourth explodes—without injuring anyone—before they could reach it. Chauhan uses this success against Shivaji by blaming him for the bomb. Seeing no way out, Shivaji summons Chauhan to the and creates a situation such that it would seem as if Chauhan was there to assassinate Shivaji but failed. To do so, Shivaji takes up a gun, points it to his left arm, shoots himself on purpose, and then hands over the gun to Chauhan his shootout. Enraged, Chauhan attempts to shoot Shivaji, but his shot misses. The security guards gun down Chauhan and kill him. Later on, Shivaji laments to Bansal that he has finally become a politician, but Bansal calms him, revealing that Chauhan deserved what he wanted. Apart from that, Manjari’s father also comes to realise that Shivaji is a great man who sees duty before everything else and allows Manjari to marry him. The film ends with the state developing under the governance of Shivaji. The uncredited roles include and , who made special appearances in the song “Shakalaka Baby” and Boys Rajan who plays a member of the Desh Seva political party. “Anil Kapoor is a very flexible kind of personality. He can play any kind of role—he can do, comedy, play the common man or a very stylish person, and on top of everything he is extremely mature. He lends himself to any kind of role. And he has done a good job.” serves as a remake of ‘s 1999 -language film , and was the director’s first venture in . The debut, announced in June 2000, was produced by under the banner of Sri Surya Movies (his second film after that of , released in 1994), and addressed the issue of . According to Shankar, he was motivated to remake in Hindi because of its subject and did several changes to the original story. In an interview with in August 2001, he said that he believed that the topic is well known among Indian people. wrote the dialogue. The role of Shivaji was originally going to be played by , but Shankar did not cast him, explaining, “… the two of us faced a huge communication gap. His views about [ ] didn’t match mine.” The next actor suggested was . However, he did not want to play the role after portraying a television presenter in his home production, (2000). Shankar’s final choice was Anil Kapoor, although he was initially reluctant to choose him for the part but changed his mind after finding him more suitable than the previous actors, noting his discipline. When asked by the about his character as well as his experience during the production of the film, Kapoor said that it was one of his career’s finest roles and called it an honour to work with Shankar. To prepare for the role, Kapoor underwent physical training for six or seven months, and watched many talk shows hosted by , , , and —later adopting their way of speaking. Nayak’s character name was based on ‘s real life name—Shivaji Rao Gaekwad—because Shankar made the script for with Rajinikanth in his mind. Kapoor also directed a scene featuring himself and . Shankar chose to fulfill the part of Manjari, a village girl who becomes the love interest of Kapoor’s character. He cast Mukerji over , who played the role in the original version, as he thought that Mukerji has the bubbly image he needed for the character. Playing the type of role for the first time, the actress admitted that she saw resemblances between Manjari and herself, noting their vibrant along with uninhibited character, and described her collaboration with Kapoor as a “growing-up experience”. Talking to a journalist from , Mukerji revealed that she immediately agreed to star in the film after hearing the story from Kapoor, which she felt was “mindblowing”. Shankar wanted her to portray the role in her own way, not copying what Koirala had done before. and made special appearances in the film. Boys Rajan, who shot for a deleted scene in , also acted in , with Shankar assuring him that his scene will not be cut. was handled by and took place in more than 100 locations in the states of , , , , , , and . served as the art director, while was the sound designer. A 22-day schedule in , , and the cities in Tamil Nadu was started on 18 November 2000. To shoot the song “Shakalaka Baby”, Anand travelled to the United States to meet the filmmaker and asked for his help. It was simultaneously shot with 34 cameras bought from the German manufacturer with a speed of 100 , instead of 24, and made the film over-budgeted; consequently, Anand spoke of his regret to do the idea. After filming ended, was edited by and . The soundtrack for the film was composed by with lyrics from . The vocals were performed by , , , , , , , , , , , and . The soundtrack album was released at a special ceremony at the Hotel Regent in under the label of , which bought the rights for (US$710,000). The album did not perform well commercially and, according to the film-trade website , only 1.4 million units were sold. Except for new tracks “Saiyyan” and “Tu Achcha” replacing “Mudhalvane” and “Azhagana Ratchasiye”, Rahman retained most of the songs from . Critically, the album was met with a poor reception from reviewers as well. of concluded that it was “quite a letdown” and “fails miserably”, saying that she had expected more from Rahman. In an article for , Savitha Gautham found the album has the same composition to that from , but the lyrics are different. She noted that the songs have strong South Indian flavours, especially in “Saiyyan”. Gautham declared “Shakalaka Baby” as the best song of the album, believing that it would be popular among Indian youth. All lyrics are written by ; all music is composed by . Originally scheduled for release on 15 August 2001, premiered at theatres on 7 September and failed to attract a large enough audience. Made on a production and marketing cost of (US$2.5 million), the film opened on 280 screens across India and grossed (US$100,000) on its first day. It collected (US$570,000) after a week, and (US$2.1 million) following its theatrical run in India. Abroad, the film also did not perform well and only had a total gross of $530,000. Summing the film’s revenues from India and overseas, Box Office India estimated earned (US$2.4 million). The film was released on in the widescreen format. Since 6 September 2019, the film is available for streaming on . Critics gave mixed reviews to , praising the performances of Kapoor and Puri from the first-half but panning the special effects, which they attributed to the film’s commercial failure. Rediff.com’s Sarita Tanwar wrote, “A fairly interesting plot, a commendable performance from the leading artiste, lavish production values and terrific pieces of action, has all the ingredients that make a commercially viable film.” from the entertainment portal gave the film one star, calling its second-half “weak”. However, he took note of the “superb” dialogue of the film, mostly that are said by Paresh Rawal’s character, while deemed Johnny Lever’s comedic scenes were “flat”. Moreover, Adarsh said that Mukerji was given with a role that did not give her screen time to talk and Pooja Batra’s role was better than hers. of the , giving the same rating, described the film as “a patchwork that’s neither pretty nor useful”. claimed that Kapoor portrayed his part with “easy professionalism”. The critic and trade analyst opined that it did not “have enough entertainment value”, suggesting that the film’s lengthy duration could be cut for ten minutes. Kapoor’s performance got appreciation from Nahta, who thought he was “splendid”, otherwise Nahta hoped that Shankar’s direction “could have been much better. His inept handling becomes conspicuous as unrealistic and unbelievable things happen in this serious issue-based drama.” Writing for , Parul Batra saw that Mukerji was wasted in her brief role although applauding her costumes. He agreed with Nahta about the duration problem, saying that it left him “disappointed”. felt that the “spirited” performance of Kapoor was the highlight of the film, and Devesh Sharma, in a review carried by , observed of him, “Anil Kapoor once again proves his brilliance as an actor with this movie […] he verily gets under the skin of his character and executes a faultless performance. His frustrations, his angst and his heart-rendering lamentations on seeing his parents blown away find answering echoes in the heart of every cinegoer.” In September 2013, the media reported that Kapoor has signed to star in a sequel to , titled . The project will have a different subject, but Kapoor has said that he will reprise his role. The sequel was officially announced later by in January 2017, with chosen to write the screenplay and the starting the same year.</p>