Saathi

Saathi review :

Al Pacino's Scarface (1983) caught the fancy of quite a few Bollywood filmmakers in the late 80s and we got four Scarface adaptations in less than two years. No surprise there!!

Mithun Chakraborty's Mujrim was the first to come in mid 1989 followed by Amitabh's Agneepath in early 1990. Next came Shatrughan Sinha's Atishbaaz (1991) and then Mahesh Bhatt's Saathi which were also inspired from the same source. Infact, a couple of scenes in Saathi and Atishbaaz are exactly same.

Anyway, Saathi is best remembered for Aditya Panscholi's solid performance as the Tony Montana styled anti hero. The role suited him perfectly and this is his career best act after Aatish (1994)'s Nawaab.

Marathi star Varsha Usgaonkar was cast as the heroine but she was paired with Mohsin Khan who played Panscholi's best friend turned foe. Anupam Kher and Paresh Rawal formed the supporting cast.

The film ran in to controversy for having a Pakistani actor Mohsin Khan and there were threats to ban it.

I saw the film at Badal Bijlee cinema, Matunga only for Varsha Usgaonkar who besides being a fellow Goan, was also my childhood crush and most favourite heroine of Marathi cinema. I have watched most of her Hindi endeavors also like Doodh Ka Karz (1990), Shikari (1991), Ghar Jamai (1992), Sone Ki Zanjeer (1992) and Honeymoon (1992). Asli fan!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.