Omkara (2006 film)

Plot

Omkara Shukla or Omi (Ajay Devgan) is a bahubali, a sort of political enforcer. He is the leader of a gang which commits political crimes for the local politician Tiwari Bhaisaab (Naseeruddin Shah). Ishwar 'Langda' Tyagi (Saif Ali Khan) and Keshav 'Kesu Firangi' Upadhyay (Vivek Oberoi) are his closest lieutenants.

The movie starts with Langda Tyagi gate-crashing a baraat and challenging Rajju (Deepak Dobriyal), the bridegroom, to try and stop Omkara from abducting the bride, Dolly Mishra (Kareena Kapoor). Rajju fails and the wedding never takes place.

Dolly’s father Advocate Raghunath Mishra (Kamal Tiwari), mostly referred in the movie as vakeel saab (lawyer sir), is furious and confronts Omi. He puts a gun to Omi’s head and demands the return of his daughter. Bhaisaab intervenes and resolves the conflict by mentioning the current political conditions and prevents bloodshed. Still unconvinced, Raghunath grieves to Bhaisaab the next day. To bring an end to this issue, Dolly is made to appear in front of her father and clarify that she eloped with Omi and was not abducted. She also tells the events of how she fell in love with Omkara. The father leaves feeling betrayed and ashamed. The director here references one of the most significant lines of the play Othello, with Dolly's father repeating the couplet almost verbatim, albeit in translation. The original lines read, "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. She has deceived her father and may thee."

After some crafty political arm-twisting, involving an MMS sex scandal, Omkara eliminates a powerful electoral rival. Bhaisaab is elected for parliament and Omkara is promoted from bahubali to the candidate for the upcoming state elections. Omkara appoints Kesu over Langda as his successor once he enters politics himself. Langda, disappointed with Omkara's poor judgment and jealous of Kesu, his younger, less-experienced, superior, hatches a plot to avenge both his offenders. He first causes a violent brawl between Kesu and Rajju by taking advantage of Kesu's low threshold for alcohol. Such irresponsible behaviour by Kesu infuriates Omi, who now starts having doubts over his decision.

On the one hand, playing the role of a concerned friend, Langda convinces Kesu to appeal to Dolly, Omi's lover and newly wedded wife, to mollify Omi. On the other hand, he starts to disrepute Dolly by implicating Kesu's visits to her as an illicit affair between the two. A kamarbandh carelessly dropped by Dolly and stolen by Langda’s wife Indu (Konkona Sen Sharma), which eventually reaches Billo Chamanbahar (Bipasha Basu) as a gift from Kesu, plays an important part in the plot, as evidence of Dolly’s infidelity.

During the climax, on the night of their wedding, Omi is convinced that Dolly and Kesu have been having an affair behind his back. In rage, he smothers his new wife to death. Langda shoots Kesu with a silent approval from Omi. Kesu is hit with a bullet on his arm. Hearing gunshots and in shock, Indu enters the room where Omi is sitting next to Dolly’s corpse in remorse. Indu notices the kamarbandh and confesses to stealing it; they both understand the fatal misunderstanding with Langda as its root cause.

In retribution, Indu slashes Langda's throat and Omi commits suicide. The movie closes with Omi lying dead on the floor and Dolly’s dead body swinging above him, while Kesu looks on.

Character outlines

Supporting cast

Shooting location

Omkara was shot over a period of 4 months across various locales, including Lonavala, Lucknow University, Allahabad, Satara Mahabaleshwar, Mumbai and Wai, Maharashtra, where bulk of the shooting took place. Even though most of the shooting took place in Maharashtra, sets were erected with precise details to create an authentic Uttar Pradesh village.

Production

Members of the production team included stunt co-ordinator Jai Singh, costume designer Dolly Ahluwalia, choreographers Bhushan Lakhandri and Ganesh Acharya along with chief assistant director Ajit Ahuja.

The title of the film was decided by a popular vote. Moviegoers had a choice among Omkara, Issak and O Saathi Re, all of which had already appeared as the film's song titles.

Aamir Khan was originally considered for Saif Ali Khan's role. Bhardwaj and Aamir were going to collaborate on an earlier project but due to creative differences, the film was shelved. Bhardwaj thought about casting Khan in this film but decided against it and therefore went to Saif.

Reception

Omkara had a fairly good performance at the box office in India and earned praises all over. The movie grossed $16,466,144 worldwide in its total run at the box office. Even though the movie received rave reviews, the dark theme and strong language kept away family audiences. It was, however, a grand success abroad. The film quickly entered the UK's Top Ten and did very well in Australia, South Africa and the United States. Omkara was praised for its taut script, dramatic sequences and its lead performances. Kareena Kapoor's and Ajay Devgan's performance was considered to be the finest of their films. Director Vishal Bhardwaj says it was Aamir Khan who was keen to star in the role of Langda Tyagi initially, but finally it was Saif Ali Khan who played it and drew the most praise for this villainous role, along with Konkana Sen who eventually won a National Award for her performance.

Language

All the dialogues in the film are delivered in a strong input of the Khariboli dialect other than Hindi, including the use of swear words, generally absent from mainstream Hindi cinema. The movie received an A Certificate from the censor board of India. Critics and audiences were divided in their opinions about the foul language. Many believed that it was not required and would lead to distancing the movie from the family audience, while on the other hand some applauded it for authentically showing the rustic setting of the story. The language and A certificate narrowed the audience but in turn brought accolades for the creators of the movie for valuing creativity over commercial success.

Soundtrack

The music is composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and the lyrics are penned by Gulzar. The music was released on 8 July 2006. The official soundtrack contains eight tracks. In January 2009, the track "Beedi" was 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 talk of the movie for giving 2 blockbuster hit songs which were beedi and namak ishq ka which became immensely popular. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 11,50,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's eleventh highest-selling.

Track listing

Music Director - Vishal Bhardwaj

Awards and nominations

Nominations are as below;