Omkara

About the film

Omkara is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language crime drama film adapted from William Shakespeare's Othello, co-written and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. It stars an ensemble cast of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vivek Oberoi and Bipasha Basu in lead roles. Bhardwaj also composed music for the film, including the background score, with lyrics by Gulzar. The film is set in Meerut, a city in Uttar Pradesh. It is the second film in Bhardwaj's trilogy of Shakespeare adaptations, which began with Maqbool (2003) and completed with Haider (2014).

Omkara was released on 28 July 2006, it received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its direction, story, screenplay, dialogues, soundtrack and performances of the ensemble cast, with particular praise directed towards Devgn, Kapoor, Khan, Oberoi, and Sen Sharma's performances.

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 and scared that she is in love with a violent criminal and leaves the village in shame.

Omkara and his gang compromise with Indore Singh, an electoral rival of Bhaisaab, by exploiting an MMS sex scandal; they also kill several of Singh's enforcers, while allowing one of them, Kichlu, to live. Bhaisaab is elected for parliament and Omkara is promoted to a candidate for the upcoming state elections.

Production

Aamir Khan was considered for the role of Langda Tyagi, however, Saif Ali Khan was cast instead. Irrfan Khan was offered the role of Kesu, but declined due to date issues. Om Puri and Anupam Kher were both considered for the role of Bhaisaab before Naseeruddin Shah was selected. Sushmita Sen and Esha Deol were both offered the role of Dolly Mishra.

Release

The film received an A Certificate from the censor board of India.

Reception

The film grossed $16,466,144 worldwide in its total run at the box office. Even though the film received rave reviews, its dark theme and strong language kept away family audiences.

Derek Elley of Variety wrote, "Strongly cast, and with a powerhouse perf by Saif Ali Khan in the Iago role, pic puts Bhardwaj in the top ranks of serious Mumbai-based helmers." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five, calling it a "flawed but worthwhile attempt to transfer Othello to the modern setting of Uttar Pradesh in India."

In a more mixed review, Taran Adarsh of IndiaFM gave the film 2.5 out of 5, praising the performances but criticising the "slow pacing" and "the lingo spoken by the characters."

Soundtrack

The music is composed by Vishal Bhardwaj with the lyrics written by Gulzar. The music was released on 8 July 2006. The official soundtrack contains 8 tracks. The track "Beedi" was used as the Baganiya Song called "Hariya" which was sung by Zubeen Garg and Anamika Tanti in the album Jhumka in 2007. In January 2009, it was also 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 talking point of the film 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 1,150,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's eleventh highest-selling.

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