Black Friday (2004)

the audience applauded

Memorable, crazy movie

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The movie is about blasts in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1993. It is about how and why they were carried out. It also puts light on the criminals involved and how justice was obtained.I would like to talk about other factors that came to my mind while watching the movie.Consider love of people belonging to Islam. It is great. During the month of Ramzan (18+1+13+26+1+14) it can be seen in their fasting. Only because of few of them going along the wrong path entire community should not be questioned. When I turned to Atheism I felt most appropriate religion to be that of Islam. I mean somebody coming into dreams and all that. Today I am again not an atheist, I feel what we are presented is stretched a lot in religious texts. A movie came 'Exodus: Gods and kings' where events are drawn the way how they could have been in reality (not stretched).It is really commendable Anurag Kashyap brings this sort of cinema to see for general public.Consider the heinous crime of rape, I don't understand how it is possible to have sex with someone when they are not psychologically involved. Thus I conclude it is more of an animal behavior rather than human. People like me cannot do it. I don't understand how those criminals who do it are built psychologically.In the movie I liked how a True Muslim decides to become a witness and helps in police proceedings.The other thing I liked is that the movie is based on writings of a writer who is Muslim.

This film begins with the famous Gandhi quote "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind".In 1993, a series of 12 bombs went off during Ramadan all over Mumbai (Bombay) which killed 257 people (thought the film often says it's 300 plus). This film is about this event as well as the subsequent police investigation of it. It's all based on true events but is rather critical of the police, and as a result the film was banned in India for two years before the government eventually allowed its release. The film begins with a man under arrest pleading for the police to believe him that a group was planning on burning the Mumbai Stock Exchange. Foolishly, the police just dismiss this and soon you see bombs detonating all over the city. All this occurs in the first few minutes of the film and what follows is a step by step documentary style investigation. How the police captured and interrogated suspects (and tortured them in some), how the mastermind of the bombings abandoned his minions and how the events are all in context, as this springs from previous attacks in which hundreds of Muslims were murdered--and this makes the quote from Gandhi at the beginning of the film quite appropriate. Overall, this is a very hard film to watch in places (such as the scene where the police use a hammer on one suspect's hand) but is also very well made and unflinching. And, unlike a typical Bollywood film, it lacks the song and dance numbers and just concentrates on telling the story.By the way, I did some checking and as of today, one ringleader was arrested and sentenced to death (he was executed two years ago). Two main ringleaders are still being sought by the Indian government.

Since having somehow forgotten about picking up the film after seeing the DVD being priced at outrageous amounts a few years ago,I was pleased to recently be reminded about the movie from a fellow IMDber,who told me that this was a modern classic that I really needed to catch up to.Prepairing to start searching for the title later that night,I thrillingly found my plans to surprisingly be stopped in their tracks,thanks to a friend telling me that he had recently signed up to an online DVD rental service called Love Film,and that the very first title that was right at the top of his list for films to rent,was Black Friday.The plot:India-1993:Investigating 12 bomb sites in the hope of finding any evidence on either the people or the group that coordinated the attacks,a bomb squad is alerted by a resident in a near by tower block that he has spotted a scooter,which has been parked unattended outside the flats.Carefully opening the scooter,the squad discover that the scooter is filled with explosives,that only failed to go off,thanks to the explosives jamming up the detonator mechanic's.Checking up on the registration details for the scooter and an explosives-filled van,that mysteriously seems to have been left undetonated at the very last moment,a group of Anti Terrorist Squiad police officers, lead by Deputy Commisonar Rakesh Maria uncover the address's that the owners of the van ans scooter are said to be located at.Raiding the location,Rakesh is furious to discover that underworld drug smuggler "Tiger" Memon was a resident of the building until one day ago,when he suddenly "disappeared".Furious over Memon going deep into cover the moment that the attacks began,Maria starts to franticly search for anyone who has even the slightest connection to "Tiger",in the hope of digging out Memon and the other surviving gang members involved in the attacks,along with trying to fully unravel the motives that caused the attack to take place.View on the film:Frozen in time for 2 years after filming by the Indian high court,due to the real life court case of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts taking place,the screenplay by writer/ director Anurag Kashyap,inspired by S. Hussain Zaidi non-fiction novel Black Friday – The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts reveals that time has been unable to fan the flames of the passionate fire contained within the movie.Bravely keeping away from taking the easy route of siding with either the police or terrorist,and tearing any potential falls into melodrama into shreds,Kashyap plants his feet right in the centre of the horrific Bombay blasts and the percussing 1992 riots,and uses brittle,to the bone dialogue to show in an unflinching vision that chaos becomes a never ending cycle of chaos and death.Separating the 1992-1994 period into overlapping chapters,Kashyap matches his brilliantly brittle dialogue by staying away from any exposition,by instead putting the viewer right in the middle of the characters lives and intelligently allowing for the viewer to make their own full picture of the events depicted in the movie,from a riot that is shown later in the film,which is connected to the riot that a suspected terrorist mentions in a snippet of dialogue right at the beginning,to the contrasting amount of focus that the police put into investigating the 1992 riots,with the 1993 bombings.Elaborating on the multi-threaded,precise nature of the screenplay with his dazzling directing,Anurag Kashyap and cinematography Nataraja Subramanian uses red,blue,yellow and green filters to give the film an extraordinary intense atmosphere,with the red filer giving the police interrogation scenes an extremely gritty,smoking hot feeling,as the police's frustrations over failing to gather evidence for the location of Tiger Memon,boils over into the manner that they treat the people suspected of collaborating with Tiger. Along with the clever use of a red filter for the police interrogation's scenes,Kashyap uses a yellow filter for the scenes between Tiger Memon,the collaborator's of the 1993 bombing and the victims of the 1992 riots,which along with giving the scenes a real grittiness also creates a strong raw feeling of the wounds that the victims of the 1992 riots have been left with,that are impossible to ever become healed.Showing the real cost of the events depicted in the movie,Kashyap closely works with editor Aarti Bajaj to inject the film with moments of archive footage,which along with showing the real people behind the events,also gives the viewer a terrifying glimpse of what actually took place,which leads to Black Friday being a film that no viewer will ever forget.

I watched Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday, a film about the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and I've decided it's one of the best films I've watched in recent years.The film is based on journalist Hussain Zaidi's heavily researched book by the same name, and what makes Black Friday so controversial - and the reason why it was such a battle to bring this film to screen - is because it takes names. It's a brave film that documents exactly what happened, based on extensive research and interviews. No names have been changed, no imaginary characters have been created. The film centers around police commissioner Rakesh Maria's investigations on the blasts.We learn that the blasts were executed by Tiger Memon on the instruction of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The remarkable thing about this film is that the director makes a concentrated effort to provide us several points of view including those of Rakesh Maria, Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and one of main bombers Baadshah Khan. Now you need to understand, it's never easy doing justice to so many viewpoints, it's always tricky because you tend to suffocate the voice of some characters, while the others get a glowing presence.But that's not the case in Black Friday. Anurag Kashyap manages to tell each character's story quite well and he even succeeds in capturing what's going on in their heads. Just look at the way he translates the restlessness and subsequently the feeling of betrayal that bomber Baadshah Khan feels after he's planted the bombs and fled from Mumbai. We tend to use the word 'realistic' very generously when we're talking about films. We describe Madhur Bhandarkar and Nagesh Kukunoor as realistic filmmakers, but truth is most of their films are exaggerated to a great degree to create drama. Now of course that's not a bad thing, because it's the drama that grips you and engages you in most of their films.But if you want to see what realism is really about, then Black Friday is the perfect example because Anurag Kashyap shoots the film in actual locations and he shoots it in such a natural, everyday manner that you feel like you're watching the news and not a feature.It can't be easy recreating the Bombay of fourteen years ago, before the mobile phone revolution, before the satellite invasion, before the city was plastered with hoardings.But Kashyap does it all so well. He takes these crane shots in a manner that you're looking down at the goings-on in these chawls and these bastis, he uses lighting so well, especially in those mono-chromatic interrogation scenes.The actual blast scenes are shot in such a languid style, exactly the way a bystander would have experienced it -a sudden explosion disturbing the everyday routine of life in that location.One cannot say enough about the actors cast to play all the central roles in this film. Kay Kay Menon as Rakesh Maria is just spectacular, as are Pawan Malhotra playing Tiger Memon and Akash Srivastava playing Baadshah Khan.The resemblance that Vijay Maurya bears to Dawood Ibrahim can only be described as frighteningly close, and the scene in which Dawood is first introduced to us in the film, is nothing short of genius.To be honest, it's not just the leads, but every single actor even in bit roles who bring so much to the film. Kashyap uses music magnificently, and the haunting rhythms of Indian Ocean truly reverberate, especially in the film's closing credits.You know, very few films are able to balance solid content with technical superiority, and Black Friday is definitely one of those rare films that succeeds in transporting you to its world while you're in the cinema watching the film. The real success of Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday lies in the fact that unlike some other very good underworld films, it doesn't sensationalise, nor glorify crime and violence. The director doesn't shoot the film dramatically, yet there is so much drama in the plot that it feels like a roller-coaster ride. Remember, it's a film that doesn't shy away from pointing fingers. Now although much of the credit for that must go to the source material - Hussain Zaidi's book - you cannot deny that film brings to life that horrible incident so much more effectively than words on a page. If there is a problem that I have with the film, it is the fact that it is too long. Post intermission, Black Friday drags its feet and you find your attention wavering. About a half-hour shorter, this film would have been magnificent. As it is, in all its two-hours-forty-minute glory, it is still quite fantastic.Believe me, no film yet has brought me so close to giving it a ten out of ten rating, but because it's just a little short of true greatness, I'm going to go with nine of ten for Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday. Please don't dismiss it as a boring art film, don't confuse it for a documentary, it's a dramatic feature that will rock your boat. This is the kind of film to send to the Oscars. This is what we need to show, we're capable of.