Deewaar

This 1975 all-time classic is what you get when legends in their absolute prime work together. The movie is an amalgmation of Salim-Javed's best script, Yash Chopra's best directorial effort, Shashi Kapoor's and Nirupa Roy's best acting efforts and one of Big B's best performances.

It was an absolute travesty that Amitabh Bachchan wasnt awarded the Filmfare Best Actor award for this movie because of Big B's war against the media those days. The screenplay is picture-perfect and there's not a single scene or a dialogue that seems out of place. Some of the new-age film-makers could learn a thing or two from this movie as to how not to spoil a serious movie by having a few silly comedy scenes just for the heck of it. RD Burman's music for this movie is very underrated. The romantic song between Shashi Kapoor and Neetu Singh stands out.

Usually the second lead in all Bachchan's movies of the 70s and 80s just could'nt hold their own against the Bachchan tsunami, but this was one of the few movies that the other hero got noticed as well (only other instance I can think of is Dharmendra in Sholay). This role fetched Shashi Kapoor the best supporting actor award if Im not mistaken. A lesser hero than Bachchan would have been daunted with Shashi Kapoor having so many good lines and all the songs. Nirupa Roy got the best ever hero's mother role in this movie and was great. Neetu Singh had a very small role and so did the sexy Parveen Babi. Parveen Babi's legs though had very long roles. They looked absolutely ravishing.

For those familiar with Yash Chopra's recent work in those cheesy SRK love stories would find his work in Deewar surprising. He also created a bit of a controversy those days by showing Bachchan and Parveen Babi having a physical relationship without being married. He crafted so many memorable scenes in this movie - villagers tatooing "mera baap chor hain" on young Bachchan's hands, when the bad guy tosses a coin at young bachchan, the dock scenes, the "mere paas maa hain" sequence, bachchan losing his 786 badge when being chased and so many more that Ill probably end up listing the entire movie.

All in all an absolute classic that was overshadowed by Sholay that released in the same year. Sholay was more a crowd pleaser with loads of comedy and high-octane action with bigger stars and a larger than life villain, but doesnt take anything away from Deewar. I know this movie was remade in all Indian languages with big stars but none of them could match Bachchan's intensity and I pray SRK doesnt try and remake this movie.