Ghatak: Lethal

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Ghatak
Ghatak Lethal.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Rajkumar Santoshi
Screenplay byRajkumar Santoshi
Dialogues byRajkumar Santoshi
Shyam Gupta
Story byRajkumar Santoshi
Produced byRajkumar Santoshi
Starring
CinematographyIshwar Bidri
Edited byV. N. Mayekar
Music byScore:
Vanraj Bhatia
Songs:
R. D. Burman
Anu Malik
Production
company
Santoshi Productions
Distributed by Bharat Shah
Release date
  • 15 November 1996 (1996-11-15)
Running time
158 min
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budget6.2 crore
Box officeest.32.7 crore [1]

Ghatak is an Indian 1996 Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, starring Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Seshadri, Danny Denzongpa and Amrish Puri.

Contents

Released on 15 November 1996, the film was a blockbuster [2] and earned 32.7 crore at the domestic box-office to become the highest-grossing Hindi film in terms of domestic box-office collections and the second-highest grossing film of the year.

It won three awards including Best Supporting Actor for Puri at the 42nd Filmfare Awards, where it was also nominated for three other awards: Best Director for Santoshi, Best Actor for Deol, and Best Villain for Denzongpa. Ghatak is Seshadri's last film to date. The film was later remade in Telugu as Aapthudu (2004), starring Rajasekhar and Anjala Zaveri.

Plot

Kashi Nath is a kind-hearted wrestler and the dutiful adopted son of Shambhu Nath, living in Banaras. Shambhu Nath, who was a freedom fighter awarded with the Tambra Patra, is an honourable and respectable man in town. Kashi, along with Shambhu, comes to Mumbai for medical treatment for Shambhu and stays with his elder brother, Shiv Nath. Kashi meets Gauri in Mumbai and starts liking her. He learns that the locality is being terrorized by the tyrannical gangster, Katya, along with his six brothers. Before Kashi's arrival, a resident named Sachdev tried to initiate a revolt against Katya, but got ruthlessly killed by him, thereby making Malti, Sachdev's widow, go mad. Katya and his brothers become enemies with Kashi when he beats up their goons when they were roughing up Malti.

Shambhu is later diagnosed with terminal throat cancer and only has a few days to live. When Kashi refuses to join Katya's gang, Katya becomes furious and humiliates Shambhu before the entire locality, by making him bark like a dog. After a series of dramatic events, Shiv is run over to death by Jeena, one of Katya's brothers. In retaliation, Kashi then kills Antya, another one of Katya's brothers, and gets arrested. Meanwhile, Shambhu passes away. When Kashi tries to disperse his father's ashes at the Ghat with the police, the police van gets attacked by Katya's brothers and goons. Kashi kills all of them, including Katya's three brothers, and reaches Katya's home. There he kills Jeena, thereby causing only two brothers to survive, including Katya; however, Kashi is captured in the process.

As Katya had Shambhu bark like a dog, he tries to make Kashi behave like an ox in front of the locality, to re-establish his supremacy. Gauri however stands up, arousing the audience to attack as well. Kashi frees himself from the shackles and beats Katya to death. Katya's entire gang is attacked by the residents of the locality. Katya's sixth and the last remaining brother, Bhiku, is killed by the mob. For retribution, Kashi makes Katya bark like a dog just like Shambhu. He then kills him in front of the residents, but loses control over himself as he keeps beating Katya's corpse. His nephew then brings him Shambhu's ashes from crematory rites which brings him back to senses. The ending is a bittersweet one, where Kashi loses every one he loved, but the locality has its freedom at last.

Cast

ActorRoleDescription
Sunny Deol Kashi Nath
Meenakshi Seshadri GauriKashi’s girlfriend
Danny Denzongpa Katya
Amrish Puri Shambu NathKashi’s adoptive father
Om Puri Sachdev
K. K. Raina Shiv NathKashi’s adoptive elder brother
Mukesh Rishi JeenaKatya’s brother
Sheela Sharma SheelaShiv Nath’s wife
Viju Khote Pinto
Anjan Srivastav Dhamu Kaka
Deep Dhillon AntyaKatya’s brother
Suresh BhagwatGopal
Tinu Verma BhikuKatya’s brother
Harish Patel Katya’s brother-in-law
Ponnambalam (Special appearance)Ring Fighter
Makrand Deshpande Katya’s goon
Ila Arun Malti
Navni Parihar
Shiva Rindani Chandru
Tinnu Anand Police Inspector
Rohini Hattangadi Savitri
Ghanashyam Nayak Receptionist
Amitabh Bachchan (friendly appearance)Himself
Atul Tiwari (friendly appearance)Batuk/Munna
Mamta Kulkarni (special appearance)Dancers in the song "Koi Aaye Toh le Jaye"
Ganesh Acharya (special appearance)

Production

Kamal Haasan was originally signed to play the lead role and an advertisement was commissioned to appear in Screen magazine noting "Welcome back to the Hindi screen", pointing at the actor's return to Hindi films after 1985's Dekha Pyaar Tumhara . However, due to no producer willing to back the actor in the film, Rajkumar Santoshi changed the star cast. [3]

Music and soundtrack

The background score of the film was composed by Vanraj Bhatia. The music for all but one song was composed by R. D. Burman. Only one song "Koi Jaye To Le Aaye" was composed by Anu Malik, and it became quite popular. The lyrics of the songs were penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri and Rahat Indori.

Ghatak: Lethal
Soundtrack album by
Released20 October 1996
Genre Feature film soundtrack
Label Venus Records & Tapes
#Song/TitleSinger(s)LengthMusic directorLyricist
1"Nigahon Ne Chheda" Suresh Wadkar, Sadhana Sargam 06:24 R.D. Burman Majrooh Sultanpuri
2"Badan Mein Chandni" Kavita Krishnamurthy 05:55R.D. BurmanMajrooh Sultanpuri
3"Aaki Naaki" Asha Bhosle 08:57R.D. BurmanMajrooh Sultanpuri
4"Ek Dil Ki Diwani"Suresh Wadkar, Sadhana Sargam07:29R.D. BurmanMajrooh Sultanpuri
5"Koi Jaye To Le Aaye" Alka Yagnik, Shankar Mahadevan 05:18 Anu Malik Rahat Indori
6"Theme of Ghatak"(Instrumental)02:28 Vanraj Bhatia

Box office

The film was made on a budget of 6.25 crores and collected over 32.7 crores nett theatrically to become a blockbuster. [2] [4]

Awards

42nd Filmfare Awards :

Won

Nominated

Screen Awards:

Won

Re-release

This film was re-released on 21 March 2025, after 28 years at the Red Lorry Film Festival. [5] [6]

References

  1. "Ghatak Collections". Archived from the original on 31 January 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2008.
  2. 1 2 "This film of Sunny Deol was a blockbuster, earned 5 times its budget,..." Archived from the original on 5 November 2025. Retrieved 4 November 2025.
  3. "Kamal Haasan: Lesser known facts". The Times of India . 7 November 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  4. "Box Office 1996" . Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  5. "Sunny Deol's 1996 film Ghatak to re-release in theatres on this date. Check details". Hindustan Times. 18 March 2025. Archived from the original on 19 March 2025. Retrieved 21 March 2025.
  6. "Ghatak re-release: Can Sunny Deol's movie beat Salman Khan's blockbuster? | Mint". mint. 19 March 2025. Archived from the original on 19 March 2025. Retrieved 21 March 2025.