Johnny Gaddaar

Plot

The film starts out on a rainy night with a conversation between four cops in a police van, patrolling the streets of Mumbai. A car narrowly misses colliding into them on the road, brakes and then continues on towards a house with iron gates. A man in a jacket gets out from the car, heads towards the garage and opens the roller shutter door when he is shot from behind multiple times. At the same time, the cops in the van receive an alert on the radio that gunshots have been heard somewhere in the vicinity and they ask the driver to head towards the location of the gunshots.

The entire movie is then shown as a flashback, building up to the present shooting, and scene of the cops in the van.

The story is about a gang of five that run a gambling club and conduct other underhand deals. The five members are Vikram (Neil Nitin Mukesh), Seshadri (Dharmendra), Shardul (Zakir Hussain), Prakash (Vinay Pathak) and Shiva (Dayanand Shetty). When one of Seshadri's police contacts from Bengaluru, Kalyan (Govind Namdeo) informs him, on the phone about "French furniture" (code word for drugs) worth Rs. 5 crore that he can offer him for Rs. 2.5 crore, Seshadri calls for all 5 members to contribute Rs. 50 lacs each to set the deal in motion. Based on Shardul's promise of being able to sell the furniture for more than Rs. 5 crore, each member anticipates a profit of a further Rs. 50 lacs each, at least.

They agree that Shiva is to take the money to Bengaluru by train, meet Kalyan, make the exchange and return on the same train. Vikram, who is dating Shardul's wife Mini (Rimi Sen) and desperately wants to emigrate to Canada with her, plans to steal the money from Shiva in the train by using chloroform to make him unconscious. In the pretext of going to Goa for business work, he goes about his plot, driving to Pune (where he uses the name Johnny G to check into hotel) then takes a flight to Goa. In Goa, he meets advocate Gomes (Raj Tilak) who is Seshadri's friend, to get his work done and to serve as an alibi later, if required. He makes sure the work is half done, flies back to Mumbai and checks-in to a hotel before boarding the train that Shiva takes, the train to Bengaluru enroute Pune. But plans go wrong and Vikram ends up killing Shiva who unmasks him before going unconscious. Now Sheshadri, Kalyan, Prakash and Shardul one-by-one, find out Vikram's truth and are killed by him in cold blood. Finally, Vikram is killed by Prakash's wife, Varsha (Ashwini Kalsekar) who mistakes him for Shardul, who she believed was Prakash's killer.

Cast

Soundtrack

The film has fifteen songs and two remixes composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy (soundtrack) and Daniel B George (score), with lyrics by Jaideep Sahni. The album was met with high critical acclaim upon its release. The soundtrack was co produced by composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Adlabs, which is first of its kind in the history of Bollywood. The album was released on 13 September 2007 at IMAX, Wadala, Mumbai. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Dharmendra, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Sriram Raghavan were present at the launch among others.

Director Sriram Raghavan approached S-E-L to score a single for the film. As they were discussing, Ehsaan came up with a riff which Sriram felt fits the theme of the movie, which then turned out to be the title song "Johnny Gaddaar". Then they decided to go for another song, which was to be picturised in a club setting. Sriram wanted it to have an early '70s feel, along the lines of the famous R.D. Burman song, "Duniya Main". Hence they jammed and came up with the second track, the rich and vibrant "Dhoka". Sriram had seen rapper Hard Kaur on TV and was impressed with her. So he asked her and the trio to jam together, and they came up with the final song of the album, "Move Your Body". The album includes Tamil and Telugu versions of the tracks "Johnny Gaddaar" and "Move Your Body".

Reception

The album was met with high praise from critics upon release. Raja Sen of Rediff, who awarded the soundtrack four and a half stars was ecstatic about the soundtrack, "Johnny Gaddaar is a delightfully harebrained work showing off extreme musical maturity. This is the soundtrack that breaks all the rules, the three buddies reveling in the recklessness director Sriram Raghavan gives them. This is what Modesty Blaise would dance to, an album of lunatic retro genius.". Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the album a three-and-a-half stars, stating, "In 'Johnny Gaddaar', don't even expect the kind of soundtrack that you hear in a conventional Bollywood film. Instead expect to get on a rhythmic ride which would hardly give you a breather throughout its 11 tracks. The music of 'Johnny Gaddaar' isn't anything that you have heard before in a mainstream Hindi film before. And this is where its strength lies!". Atta Khan of Planet Bollywood in his 9 star review, praised the soundtrack "Every once in a while a soundtrack comes along that leaves you in awe at its sheer audacity and pizzazz. Not to mention style, inspiration, variety, innovation and all round brilliance! In this reviewer's opinion, Johnny Gaddaar is such a soundtrack. The whole package here including the instrumentals is an integral USP of the movie giving it a (dark but hip) character that many soundtracks only dream of achieving. Yet at the same time it is a great stand alone audio product too. Its unconventional approach challenges every listener to expand their listening horizon and it's an offer everyone should wholeheartedly accept."

The soundtrack featured in the "Top 10 music Albums of the year" list by Rediff, which said Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy get it right again with twisted, unorthodox productions like Johnny Gaddaar. It also was featured in the "Top 15 albums of the year" list of Planetbollywood, who remarked that "SEL have succeed in re-defining themselves and maintaining the edge over their counterparts."

Filmfare Awards

Winner

Star Screen Awards

Nominated

Stardust Awards

Nominated

IIFA Awards

Winner

Star Guild Awards

Winner

Zee Cine Awards

Winner

Apsara Film and Television Producers Guild Awards

Winner