Around the mid 90's when the next generation of stars(the 3 Khan's and Khiladi Kumar mainly) our 80's Superstars either went into politics (Vinod Khanna & Shatrughan Sinha); went into semi retired-ness(Jeetendra,Rishi Kapoor); kept working in B grade or even C grade films (Dharmendra)or just kept on struggling till they hit it big again (Amitabh Bachchan). Mithunda being younger and physically in way better shape than these guys seeing that his movies were not doing so well in major cities but very successful in smaller territories and theatres even in the cities; and if they could be made cheaper could be very profitable for all involved moved to Ooty in Bangalore.He Purchased a chain of hotels there,moved there with his family and worked with mostly the same cast and crews to make cheap but not necessarily bad action-thriller movies.Shapath is the best of them!Trust me I've seen all of them.
The main plot deals with the mystery regarding the killing of local politicians by the cities gangsters to keep their bought and paid for politician in power.It's very intricately plotted since we don't know till the very end who's the boss(course it's kind of guessable)but the fun is in watching Dada and Jackie solve the puzzle together and kick some serious ass along the way.The action sequences are very,very well done.Specially the climax where it's just one long sequence running for around 25 minutes and it's some serious carnage including cars blasting,limbs tearing,3-4 guys jumping in the air after getting kicked and bursting through glass walls.Kudos to action director Rambo.
One of the best things about the movie is it's solid supporting cast with nobody hamming or phoning it in.Kader Khan,Gulshan Grover,Salim Ghouse,Ranjeet(my favourite)and Raza Murad are the bad guys; what a line-up.Achyut podtar in a rare positive role was surprising.And Shakti Kapoor & Guddi Maruti were wonderful as the comic relief's. Karina Grover was hot.Jackie and Ramya were OK but the movie belongs to Dada.Playing a disgraced commando turned drunken mafia enforcer he belongs in a Japanese samurai movie.And he's awesome.
The music is pretty good too.Specially "Chuski" and the superhit "Thoda intezaar ka mazaa li jiye" with our two heroes shaking a leg with none other than the singer Altaaf Raja himself in a cameo.
