Omkara was released on 28 July 2006, and proved to be an average at the box office, due to its dark theme and strong language which kept away family audience. However, it received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its direction, story, screenplay, dialogues, soundtrack and performances of the ensemble cast, with particular praise directed towards Devgn, Kapoor, Khan, Oberoi, and Sen Sharma's performances.
Omkara "Omi" Shukla is an enforcer for a gang that commits political crimes for the local politician Tiwari Bhaisaab. Ishwar "Langda" Tyagi and Keshav "Kesu Firangi" Upadhyay are his closest lieutenants. Langda gatecrashes a baraat and challenges Rajju, the groom, to try and stop Omkara from abducting the bride, Dolly Mishra. Rajju fails and the wedding never takes place.
Dolly's father, advocate Raghunath Mishra, is enraged with Omkara and at one point threatens to kill him. To sort out the misunderstanding, Bhaisaab arranges for Dolly to appear before her father; she clarifies that she eloped with Omkara and was not abducted. Her father remains disgusted and scared that she is in love with a violent criminal and leaves the village in shame.
Omkara and his gang compromise with Indore Singh, an electoral rival of Bhaisaab, by exploiting an MMS sex scandal; they also kill several of Singh's enforcers, while allowing one of them, Kichlu, to live. Bhaisaab is elected for parliament and Omkara is promoted to a candidate for the upcoming state elections.
Omkara appoints Kesu over Langda as his successor once he enters politics himself, as he feels Kesu, who hails from the upper class and is college-educated, stands a better chance of winning over the younger, educated voting crowd than Langda, who is rustic and a school-dropout.
Langda, disappointed with Omkara's poor judgment and jealous of Kesu, his younger, less-experienced superior, decides to take revenge. He first causes a brawl between Kesu and Rajju by taking advantage of Kesu's low threshold for alcohol, which affects Omkara's faith in Kesu. Langda has Kesu convince Dolly to mollify Omkara, and uses Kesu's visits to Dolly as evidence to suggest to Omkara that the two are having an affair. Langda additionally has Indu, his wife and Omkara's sister, steal an expensive piece of jewellery that Omkara gifted to Dolly, and encourages Kesu to gift it to his girlfriend Billo.
Billo is later used to lure Kichlu out of hiding, so Omkara's gang can assassinate him. Omkara, Langda and their associates arrive at the hideout, where Billo is dancing. Omkara then chases down and murders Kichlu in a rage. Later, after they kill several people on a train, Omkara beats Langda and demands that he unambiguously tell him whether Kesu and Dolly are having an affair. Langda insists that they are.
On Omkara and Dolly's wedding day, a bird drops a snake into the paint being used by Dolly: a bad omen. Indu tells her brother not to marry Dolly if he has doubts. Omkara is still unsure, and demands proof from Langda. Langda tricks Omkara into believing that Kesu's explicit talk about Billo is referring to Dolly, and arranges for Omkara to watch Billo drop Omkara's heirloom jewellery at Kesu's door.
Convinced of the affair, Omkara smothers Dolly to death on their wedding night. Elsewhere, Langda shoots Kesu, who collapses but survives and Rajju shoots himself. Hearing gunfire, Indu rushes to Omkara, where she finds Dolly's corpse and the recovered jewellery. She confesses to having stolen the jewellery for Langda, making Omkara realise that Langda is responsible for his fatal misunderstanding. As Langda leaves, Indu slashes his throat in retribution. The wounded Kesu enters, asking Omkara "How did you ever think...?" Omkara shoots himself in the chest and dies next to his wife.
Cast
Ajay Devgn as Omkara "Omi" Shukla (character based on Othello) – a hardened goon, equivalent to a capo, a man with principles who sees life in extremes, either as good or evil. He is the illegitimate child of a higher caste Brahmin man and a lower caste woman.
Kareena Kapoor as Dolly Mishra (character based on Desdemona) – a playful, naïve, young woman, smitten by Omi. She expresses her love for him and lays the basis of their relationship. Throughout the narrative, other characters are shown to doubt her character, including her father. Omi finds her personality ambiguous, resulting in their tragic end.
Saif Ali Khan as Ishwar "Langda" Tyagi (character based on Iago) – the catalyst in the story. He had been a loyal right-hand man to Omi for years and expected to be the next bahubali. Kesu's promotion deals a crushing blow to his ambitions and brings out the evil in him. His jealousy and hatred towards his kin are further encouraged by chiding remarks from Rajju.
Konkona Sen Sharma as Indu Tyagi (character based on Emilia) – Langda Tyagi's wife. She becomes an unwitting aid in her husband's plan.
Vivek Oberoi as Keshav "Kesu" Firangi (character based on Cassio) – Omi's other deputy. His epithet comes from his knowledge of English. He is college-educated and urban, known to be somewhat of a casanova. He is important to Omi for his political contacts in the students. After admitting to having "known" a string of women, he falls in love with Billo and proposes marriage. He is shown to be impatient and easily frustrated, with a low threshold for alcohol.
Bipasha Basu as Billo Chamanbahar (character based on Bianca) – a singer and dancer who melts hearts with just her looks. She sees Kesu as a future companion, but keeps him hanging on. She becomes a pawn for Langda to manipulate.
Naseerudin Shah as Tiwari Bhaisaab (character based on the Duke of Venice) – an influential and powerful politician that many characters defer to. He is an outwardly sophisticated man, with a ruthless interior. He governs with an iron fist, picking up enemies as he progresses in his career. He is a father figure for Omkara as well as the political head honcho.
Deepak Dobriyal as Rajan "Rajju" Tiwari (character based on Roderigo) – the son of a respectable thekedar, he is head-over-heels in love with Dolly. He tries to win her affection throughout the film.
The film grossed $16,466,144 worldwide in its total run at the box office. Even though the film received rave reviews, its dark theme and strong language kept away family audiences.[14]
Derek Elley of Variety wrote, "Strongly cast, and with a powerhouse perf by Saif Ali Khan in the Iago role, pic puts Bhardwaj in the top ranks of serious Mumbai-based helmers."[15]Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five, calling it a "flawed but worthwhile attempt to transfer Othello to the modern setting of Uttar Pradesh in India."[16]
In a more mixed review, Taran Adarsh of IndiaFM gave the film 2.5 out of 5, praising the performances but criticising the "slow pacing" and "the lingo spoken by the characters."[17]
The music is composed by Vishal Bhardwaj with the lyrics written by Gulzar. The music was released on 8 July 2006. The official soundtrack contains 8 tracks. The track "Beedi" was used as the Baganiya Song called "Hariya" which was sung by Zubeen Garg and Anamika Tanti in the album Jhumka in 2007. In January 2009, it was also used as the theme tune to a Brazilian TV soap opera called Caminho das Índias, produced by Rede Globo. On the back of this success, "Beedi" received considerable airplay on pop radio stations in Brazil becoming the first Hindi-only song to achieve this. The mini-series' soundtrack, which includes the track, went on to become one of the biggest selling albums of the year. Eventually, Bipasha Basu became the talking point of the film for giving 2 chartbuster songs, "Beedi" and "Namak", both of which became immensely popular. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 1,150,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's eleventh highest-selling.[18]
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