Omkara (2006 film)

Omkara is a 2006 Indian crime drama film adapted from William Shakespeare's "Othello", co-written and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. It starred an ensemble cast of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vivek Oberoi and Bipasha Basu in the lead roles. The director Vishal Bhardwaj himself composed the entire music for the film, including the background score, with lyrics by Gulzar. The film is set in Meerut, a city in Western Uttar Pradesh.
"Omkara" is the second film in Bhardwaj's trilogy of Shakespeare adaptations, which began with 2003's "Maqbool" and was completed with 2014's "Haider". The film was showcased in the Marché du Film section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival along with a book on the making of "Omkara". It was also selected to be screened at the Cairo International Film Festival, where Bhardwaj was awarded for Best Artistic Contribution in Cinema of a Director. The film also won 3 awards at the Kara Film Festival, an award at the Asian Festival of First Films, 3 National Film Awards, and 9 Filmfare Awards.
Plot.
Omkara "Omi" Shukla is an enforcer for a gang that commits political crimes for the local politician Tiwari Bhaisaab. Ishwar "Langda" Tyagi and Keshav "Kesu Firangi" Upadhyay are his closest lieutenants. Langda gatecrashes a "baraat" and challenges Rajju, the groom, to try and stop Omkara from abducting the bride, Dolly Mishra. Rajju fails and the wedding never takes place.
Dolly's father, advocate Raghunath Mishra, is enraged with Omkara and at one point threatens to kill him. To sort out the misunderstanding, Bhaisaab arranges for Dolly to appear before her father; she clarifies that she eloped with Omkara and was not abducted. Her father remains disgusted that she is in love with a man from a lower caste and leaves the village in shame.
Omkara eliminates a powerful electoral rival by exploiting an MMS sex scandal. Bhaisaab is elected for parliament and Omkara is promoted to the candidate for the upcoming state elections. Omkara appoints Kesu over Langda as his successor once he enters politics himself, as he feels Kesu, who hails from the upper classes and is college-educated, stands a better chance of winning over the younger, educated voting crowd than Langda, who is rustic and dropped out of school. 
Langda, disappointed with Omkara's poor judgment and jealous of Kesu, his younger, less-experienced superior, decides to take revenge. He first causes a violent brawl between Kesu and Rajju by taking advantage of Kesu's low threshold for alcohol, which damages Omkara's faith in Kesu. Langda has Kesu convince Dolly to mollify Omkara, but at the same time uses Kesu's visits to Dolly as evidence to suggest to Omkara that the two of them are having an affair. Langda additionally has Indu, his wife and Omkara's sister, steal an expensive piece of jewelry that Omkara gifted to Dolly, and encourages Kesu to gift it to his girlfriend Billo. 
Billo is later used to lure Kichlu, a rival gang enforcer, out of hiding, so Omkara's gang can assassinate him. Omkara arrives at the ambush and spots Billo wearing the missing jewelry; he murders Kichlu and his gang in a rage, and forces Langda to unambiguously tell him whether Kesu and Dolly are having an affair. Langda insists that they are, making a number of additional false claims to support his story. 
Convinced of the affair, Omkara smothers Dolly to death on their wedding night. Elswhere, Langda attempts to have Kesu assassinated, but the bullet merely grazes his arm. Indu hears gunfire and rushes to Omkara's aid, where she finds Dolly's corpse and the recovered jewelry. She confesses to having stolen the jewelry for Langda, making Omkara realize that Langda is responsible for his fatal misunderstanding of the situation. Indu slashes Langda's throat in retribution, while Omkara commits suicide and dies next to his wife.
Shooting Locations.
"Omkara" was shot over a period of 4 months across various locales, including Lonavala, Lucknow University, Allahabad, Satara Mahabaleshwar, Mumbai and Wai, Maharashtra, where bulk of the shooting took place. Even though most of the shooting took place in Maharashtra, sets were erected with precise details to create an authentic Uttar Pradesh village.
Production.
Members of the production team included stunt coordinator Jai Singh, costume designer Dolly Ahluwalia, choreographers Bhushan Lakhandri and Ganesh Acharya along with chief assistant director Ajit Ahuja.
The title of the film was decided by a popular vote. Moviegoers had a choice among "Omkara", "Issak" and "O Saathi Re", all of which had already appeared as the film's song titles. Sushmita Sen was the first choice for Kapoor's role. Aamir Khan was originally considered for Saif Ali Khan's role. Bhardwaj and Aamir were going to collaborate on an earlier project but due to creative differences, the film was shelved. Bhardwaj thought about casting Khan in this film but decided against it and approached Saif.
Reception.
"Omkara" had a fairly good performance at the box office in India and earned critical acclaim all over. The movie grossed $16,466,144 worldwide in its total run at the box office. Even though the movie received rave reviews, the dark theme and strong language kept away family audiences. It was, however, a grand success abroad. The film quickly entered the UK's Top 10 and did very well in Australia, South Africa and the United States.
"Omkara" was universally acclaimed and was praised for its taut script, dramatic sequences and its lead performances. Kareena Kapoor's and Ajay Devgn's performance was considered to be the finest of their films, yet it was Saif Ali Khan's performance that was labeled as the real milestone of the film and drew the most and unanimous critical praise as Langda Tyagi. Director Vishal Bhardwaj says it was Aamir Khan who was keen to star in the role of Langda Tyagi initially, but finally it was Saif Ali Khan who bagged the role. Konkana Sen, who eventually won a National Award for her performance, was also highly praised.
Language.
All the dialogues in the film are delivered in a strong input of the Khariboli dialect other than Hindi, including the use of swear words, generally absent from mainstream Hindi cinema. The movie received an A Certificate from the censor board of India. Critics and audiences were divided in their opinions about the foul language. Many believed that it was not required and would lead to distancing the movie from the family audience, while some applauded it for authentically showing the rustic setting of the story. The language and A certificate narrowed the audience but in turn brought accolades for the creators of the movie for valuing creativity over commercial success.
Soundtrack.
The music is composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and the lyrics are penned by Gulzar. The music was released on 8 July 2006. The official soundtrack contains 8 tracks. In January 2009, the track "Beedi" was used as the theme tune to a Brazilian TV soap opera called "Caminho das Índias", produced by Rede Globo. On the back of this success, "Beedi" received considerable airplay on pop radio stations in Brazil becoming the first Hindi-only song to achieve this. The mini-series' soundtrack, which includes the track, went on to become one of the biggest selling albums of the year. Eventually, Bipasha Basu became the talk of the movie for giving 2 chartbuster songs, "Beedi" and "Namak", both of which became immensely popular. According to the Indian trade website "Box Office India", with around units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's eleventh highest-selling.
Track listing.
Music Director – Vishal Bhardwaj