Trishul

Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! At a point of time during the seventies, almost every third Bollywood movie was being made on the theme of revenge. Sometimes, the story was given the backdrop of banditry and sometimes that of smuggling. However the purpose remained the same in every case - settling score with and teaching a lesson to the wrongdoer(s).

Superstar Amitabh Bachchan's makers in the real sense who only arranged the Angry Young Man tag for him - Salim-Jaaved wrote a brilliant drama for the extra-ordinarily popular hero which was a revenge drama coupled with a family drama, quite different from the routine revenge sagas being made like assembly line production in that period. This unrealistic yet highly impressive movie is Trishul(1978), a multi-starrer made by Gulshan Rai and directed by none other than the legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra.

In Trishul(trident), our hero Vijay(Amitabh Bachchan) seeks revenge from his estranged father Raaj Kumar Gupta(Sanjeev Kumar) who had ditched his mother Shaanti(Waheeda Rehmaan) for the sake of marrying Kaamini(Geeta Siddharth) to get her wealth and make it big in life. He indeed makes it big in his life and becomes the biggest construction contractor of the region. He begets one son - Shekhar(Shashi Kapoor) and one daughter Babli(Poonam Dhillon) through his marriage with Kaamini. On the other hand totally alone and resourceless Shaanti fosters her son Vijay with a lot of difficulty but teaches him only one thing - self confidence. Vijay comes to learn that with self-confidence, one can achieve everything. And when his dying mother tells him about his father and what he had done to her, he uses this the only asset of his(self confidence) to settle score with him. The activities of Vijay and his interaction with R.K. Gupta and his family form the bulk of the narrative and keep the audience hooked for two and a half hours in which Vijay seeks his revenge from his father by becoming his business competitor.

Right from Vijay's setting in to seek his revenge(or his mother's revenge) from R.K. Gupta, the complete script runs in typical Salim-Jaaved style of the seventies - blows and counter-blows, checks and checkmates, frequent twists in the tale happening at such a speed that the viewer does not get any time to pause and ponder over what's being shown to him and just keeps on watching holding his breath and finally, lots of action. Most of the masaala movies starring Amitabh Bachchan were made in this style only but Trishul puts itself in a league of its own. There is a heavy dose of sentiments in the action-studded drama and it is underscored both subtly and loud that the hero is the hero because he is capable of doing anything and achieving anything purely riding on the strength of his guts and confidence. However the script is totally unreliable because the way the completely resourceless hero becomes a big construction contractor in a very short period, is possible in fiction only.

Yash Chopra has presented the very fast-paced drama on the screen with elegance. Despite lots of cinematic liberties taken in the script, the characters do not appear unreal and they are able to leave their mark on the audience. No character has been ignored in the huge star cast assembled for the movie, may it be Shashi Kapoor or Raakhee or Hema Maalini or Sachin or Poonam Dhillon or Younus Parvez. Especially Raakhee emerges high through her well-written role(of Geeta, an honest employee of R.K. Gupta) in this male-dominated movie. And the narrator has very skillfully shown that Vijay and Geeta gradually come close to each other without showing any romance between them which is something highly laudable.

Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar are two pillars of the script and both of them have lived up to their reputation. Sanjeev has brought a typical businessman with a professional mindset alive on the screen who keeps the practical aspect of life above personal sentiments whereas Amitabh Bachchan is the popular angry young man of that era expressing his anger sometimes in a controlled way and sometimes a little bit loud. The script has given them ample moments to take on and outwit each other on the screen and they outshine each other on different occasions.

All others including the debutante Poonam Dhillon have done quite satisfactorily. Prem Chopra is the typical Bollywood villain and he has performed stylishly.

The movie is studded with action and fight scenes associated with Amitabh Bachchan in that era. Today, it's a pleasure to watch such action on the screen when the larger than life hero beats many baddies single-handedly.

The production value of the movie is according to the repute of the banner. It's a technically superior movie. Editing is so sharp that seldom do we get a moment to relax throughout the duration of the movie.

Music by Khayyam is not great but not bad either. Tu Mere Saath Rahega Munne, Mohabbat Bade Kaam Ki Cheez Hai, Gaapuchi Gaapuchi Gam Gam, Jaaneman Tum Kamaal Karti Ho etc. are all quite good to listen and have also been presented on the screen very well.

The title of the movie is perhaps as such because the grief in the heart of the hero(due to the injustice done to his mother) keeps on hurting him like a trident.

It's one of the blockbuster movies of Big B, i.e., Amitabh Bachchan and renders abundant entertainment even when watched today. I wholeheartedly recommend this evergreen movie to one and all.

This is one of Amitabh Bachchan's Angry Young Man action movies. In this one, he is the illegitimate son of a big industrialist. The industrialist, when he was a young man, got a woman pregnant, but at his mother's insistence he married the boss' daughter and left his girlfriend to raise the illegitimate son in poverty. The son, named Vijay Kumar, makes a solemn vow to get justice for his mother by humbling the father who wouldn't take his responsibility as the father of her child.

Well, as they say its a pretty good movie. Bachchan gives the usual intense performance. Sanjeev Kumar plays the father in the classic style. Waheeda Rehman is the wronged mother. Later in the plot, Shashi Kapoor shows up as Shekhar, RG Gupta's legitimate son by the boss' daughter. And Hema Malini shows up as Sheetal, Shekhar's love interest.

Shashi also played Amitabh's brother in the good son-bad son drama Deewar.

Good things for ME were Hema. She was just a gorgeous screen presence back then and every smile warmed things up. In a way, Hema played herself as the confident, ambitious woman. Probably not too hard a role for her.

And Bachchan's acting. He's always the most riveting present on the screen. Prem Chopra was pretty good as the oily rival. I also liked Rakhee Gulzar as Geeta.

Not too much I didn't like about the movie, but I found some of the songs kind of disruptive to the flow of the story. They weren't badly shot or anything, they just seemed out of place.

There was some cleverness in the script. For a while, as business rivals, Gupta and Vijay play kind of a chess game. The screenplay is by Javed Akhtar and shows some intelligence.

So, I guess I can give it an 8/10.

Trishul is one of Bachchan's best movies. The role of Vijay was tailor made for him. Yash Chopra has created another master piece with this movie. It was a super-hit, running for more than 100 Weeks. The song 'Mohabbat bade kaam ki' is a very good song.

Trishul has a better cast than Kaala Patthar, but IMO the latter is the better film. Yes, Trishul has Sanjeev and when did he ever fail to satisfy? But his character is most undeveloped in my opinion. In the beginning it is clear that he loves Waheeda, is forced by his mother to marry the rich man's daughter, is torn when she announces she is expecting his child - so he is not all bad. But would just that one act of weak caving-in make him more and more extreme in his dealing with people? No fault at Sanjeev's door, he did a very good job with the material given him. Rakhi was just there, Sachin and his lady, not needed other than to stage a coup against the patriarch. Shashi was quite good, as was Hema - their love story was convincing. Amitabh yet again stole the show with his simmering rage and outrage at the abandonment of his mother. The fight scenes were so real, but the story was somewhat predictable. This one, like Kaala Patthar, was also mostly focused on the story and did not rely on too much romance or songs.

One thing I like about these oldies from Yash Chopra is the very matter-of-fact dealing between the sexes. In Kaala Patthar Shashi invites Parveen to stay with him after she is thrown out, tells her he lives by himself, and without any coyness she accepts. In Deewar the relationship between Amitabh and Parveen is most matter-of-fact. In Trishul the same goes for the relationship between Waheeda and Sanjeev. And these were educated people, not from the lower strata - yet they did not have the prudishness one sees on display in modern fare.

Trishul review:

"Main Uss Shanti ka beta hoon Mr. R. K. Gupta ...aur aap mere NAAJAYAZ BAAP hai".

Trishul - produced by noted producer Gulshan Rai and directed by Yash Chopra - relied primarily on Amitabh Bachchan's simmering intensity and volcanic angst. He played Vijay, a man with a mission to get even with his biological dad R. K. Gupta (Sanjeev Kumar) who had ditched his mother (Waheeda Rehman) to marry a wealthy heiress. Vijay's revenge is not physical but rather an emotional one wherein he wants to destroy his father's business empire. Vijay even conspires to win over Sheetal (Hema Malini) whom his R. K. Gupta's legitimate son and Vijay's step bro Shekhar (Shashi Kapoor) is in love with.

Salim Javed's script wasn't perfect - it had its share of cinematic liberties like a young engineer Vijay with no money or clout becoming a top businessman almost in a jiffy to take on the might of an established business tycoon like R. K. Gupta. But the audience chose to overlook these fallacies only due to Bachchan's charisma and star power to pull off the role of Vijay - an otherwise anti-hero who touches your heart just by his belief and conviction in what he is doing.

Yash Chopra's direction was extraordinary and this is my personal favourite from his illustrious resume - a film he chose to remake again as Vijay (1988) with Anil Kapoor in Bachchan's role but that film turned out to be a box office dud.

Not many know that Gulshan Rai wasn't too happy at the trial show held when the film was around seventy percent complete. Yash Chopra too agreed with his producer that there was something missing in Trishul and he huddled up with Salim Javed to finetune the screenplay further. Amitabh's ambulance wala fight scene was added to the plot which later became the film's highlight. That bit of re-work benefited the film tremendously and it ended up being the second highest grosser of 1978 after Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar.

Trishul earned a Filmfare award nomination for Bachchan which he lost to himself for his performance in Chandra Barot's Don (1978). As the saying goes, One should only compete with oneself!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.