Raj Kumar Santoshi’s films.

Raj Kumar Santoshi’s films.

During the last 20 years, Raj Kumar Santoshi had entertained the viewers with his action films which best on anti-establishment themes. The viewers had identified themselves with the unfair practices that took place which were shown in the films.

In Ghayal, Raj Kumar Santoshi had used Sunny Deol to protest against the oppression of Amrish Puri in the film. Amrish Puri had used the industry, the police force, the ministry and all the influential people in the film to plant false cases against Sunny and get him imprisoned after killing Raj Babbar. Sunny got out of prison, took the help of three other prisoners and destroyed the unlawful business establishments of Amrish Puri. While taking revenge against him, he also attracted the attention of Om Puri, an honest police officer that the police force was also responsible for making Amrish Puri a tyrant.


Similarly in Ghatak, Sunny came from Benaras and raised voice against the mafias working in Mumbai who had dominated over shopkeepers and other businessmen in the area. His father Amrish Puri who was suffering from Cancer was ill-treated by Danny, the leader of the gang, and Sunny fought against the entire gang alone. Meenakshi had ably supported him in his fight against evil.

Also in Damini, it was shown that a middle-class witness faces huge amount of obstacles while giving testimony about what the person had witnessed before a court of law. Meenakshi saw the bodily assault of her servant in the house, but when she went to give her testimony, the entire family of her inlaws stopped her, even proved her to be insane. Only the lawyer played by Sunny and her husband Rishi Kapoor, had the courage to disclose the truth and see that the criminals are punished.


He also showed the struggle of Anil Kapoor in Pukar, where he was a military officer who faced court martial for the false allegations against him which were planted by Madhuri Dixit. Eventually he unearthed the terrorist activity of Danny who wanted to kill huge number of people in a banquet hall, which he stopped at the end of the people. Even China Gate was successful, showing the fight of retired military officers against a group of dacoits who became notorious due to corruption of local police. Om Puri, Nasiruddin Shah, Amrish Puri, Paresh Rawal, all did well in the film. The viewers expect similar types of films from Raj Kumar Santoshi in the years to come.

By: CR Chatterji.