Vaastav

Mahesh Manjrekar's 1999 film tells the Mumbai underworld through an ordinary person. Raghu, unemployed, opens a small food stall with a friend; during an argument a customer is accidentally killed and Raghu has to run. From there he enters the criminal world and rises through it, though the film never makes that rise attractive. His family sits at the centre: his mother, his brother and the neighbourhood learn step by step what he has become. The ending has a hardness rarely seen in Indian gangster narratives. Sanjay Dutt's performance is regarded as among the most cited of his career and carries the character's collapse physically as well. It is one of the most influential entries in the nineties wave of films about the Bombay underworld. Who it's for: viewers who like Indian crime cinema and realistic gangster narratives. Who it's not for: anyone who will find detailed depiction of violence and drug addiction heavy going.