Black Friday (2004)

Director:

Anurag Kashyap

Writers:

Anurag Kashyap (screenplay)
Hussain Zaidi (book)

Release Date:

9 February 2007 (India)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

The story of the Bombay bomb blasts

Plot:

Black Friday is a film about the investigations following the 1993 serial Bombay bomb blasts, told through the different stories of the people involved --police, conspirators, victims, middlemen. |

Plot Keywords:

Islamic Terrorism | Mumbai Riots | Nonlinear Timeline | Muslim | Overhead Camera Shot

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Kay Kay Menon	...	Rakesh Maria
Pavan Malhotra	...	Tiger Memon
Aditya Srivastava	...	Badshah Khan
Dibyendu Bhattacharya	...	Yeda Yakub
Kishore Kadam	...	Dangle
Gajraj Rao	...	Dawood Phanse
Zakir Hussain	...	Nand Kumar Chougale
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Imtiaz Ali	...	Yakub Memon
Ragesh Asthana	...	Mohammad Dossa
Aditya Bhattacharya	...	Sheikh Aziz
Raja Chaudhary	...	Mushtaq Tarani
Raja Choudhary	...	Mushtaq tarani
Aliya Curmally	...	Shabana Memon
Sanjay Gandhi	...	DCP K.L. Bishnoi
Ashraf Ul Haq	...	Bashir Khan
Pankaj Jha	...	Anwar Theba
Pratima Kazmi	...	Badshah's mother
Vijay Maurya	...	Dawood Ibrahim
Loveleen Mishra	...	Newstrack Interviewer
Pranay Narayan	...	Imtiaz Ghavate
Nawazuddin	...	Asgar Mukadam
Bobby Parvez	...	Rakesh Khurana
Jeetu Shastri	...	Tainur

Runtime:

143 min | Switzerland:161 min (Locarno Film Festival)

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX

Certification:

UK:18 (cut) | Singapore:R21 | India:A

Filming Locations:

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Company:

Mid Day Multimedia Limited

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the dog is taken inside the small go-down to check the sacks containing the RDX, it simply whimpers and comes out(because it only smells fish), thus indicating that there is no explosive material. But when the cop comes in and kicks the bottom sack, he finds the stuff. The dog itself smelled the lowermost sack in the first place, yet it did not bark.

Quotes:

Rakesh Maria: Asgar Mukadam?
[Asgar murmurs an affirmation]
Rakesh Maria: Sit straight! Since when have you been working with Tiger Memon?
Asgar Mukadam: One year.
Rakesh Maria: What do you know about him?
Asgar Mukadam: Sir, I was merely a manager there.
Rakesh Maria: One year is long enough to become a hood from a manager.
Asgar Mukadam: Sir I only used to keep accounts.
Rakesh Maria: But you just said you were a manager! Look Asgar, I haven't eaten anything since morning... My head is hurting and I'm hungry... If you dont talk, I will make you do so! Tiger smuggles Silver, doesn't he? What else does he do?
[Silence]
[...]

Heartbreakingly True.

This is not only a film. It's a lesson. It's a message. It's cruelly true history. It's an initiative. It's an attempt. It's a bold step, forward. It's known yet untold bare truth. And after all it's a film.

No doubt the film opens old wounds, but only to find the root cause of it, only to find cure for them, only to make sure they are eradicated and never surface again. The film presents the hard facts about the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai (then Bombay). The film gives a new dimension to real life cinema, with real name, real incidents, and real people. The usage of actual news footage of the incidents make you believe whatever you are watching. It takes courage to take names of some of the biggest name in underworld and Indian politics as bluntly, and the filmmaker shows that courage. The story doesn't point finger on any particular person, group or community as the culprit for what is still Indian crime history's biggest tragedy. It tries to make a point how some clever minds make their business out of our religious sentiments, at the cost of lives of common men. Men who are common in every sense of it. The terror, the attacks, the explosions, the riots inhales not any particular community but the whole humanity.

Director churns out a stunning effort. Technically too the film is impeccable. The blast sequences couldn't have got any more realistic. Each actor performs his character to full honesty, but Badshah Khan and Tiger Memon stand out.

And before you jump to your own conclusion to decide the culprit(s), to decide the fate of them, the film concludes with the quote that says it all.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

A must watch.