Nayak: The Real Hero

Shivaji Rao, a television journalist, gets into a hard argument with the state chief minister on live air. The minister challenges him to take the chair for a single day and see what he can do. In one day Shivaji shows how much can be changed, and the public starts wanting him. The subject is not good governance but what that day costs. His decisions are fast and popular; in the second half the film shows what it costs him and his family, and the tone hardens there. The form is large in scale: crowd scenes, songs, long action sequences. Shankar's usual method operates here too, listing social problems one by one and answering each with a scene. The production is the Hindi remake of the director's own Tamil film Mudhalvan. A. R. Rahman scored both versions. It fell short at the box office but became permanent through repeated television broadcast. Anil Kapoor plays Shivaji, Amrish Puri the chief minister and Rani Mukerji the woman he loves. Who it is for: viewers curious about political Indian mainstream cinema and the fantasy of the single honest man. Who it is not for: anyone expecting political complexity; the film ties every problem to one honest administrator.