Stars : Ashok Kumar, Rajendra Kumar & Nanda
Watch on : Prime Video
For lovers of old classics from the 1960s era of Hindi movies there is some good news ! Prime Video has now in its collection ‘Kanoon’, considered as a masterpiece of all times in crime thriller genre from the renowned house of Director BR Chopra. Not only did it receive critical acclaim for superbly taut screenplay and powerful performances of lead actors but created a path breaking cult of a Hindi film made sans any songs in entirety.
There’s also considerable nostalgia involved with the film for cinema buffs like us who first saw it at the age of ten and yet the impact of its gripping story telling of an amazing murder mystery played out in a tense courtroom battle, still lingers after six decades ! For the present day viewers it may look dated in its wordiness and rhetorical style yet here’s a thriller that’s perplexing and carries ‘edge of the seat’ suspense till it’s very end.
The brilliance of the film is raised by its superb star cast led by thespian Ashok Kumar as the learned judge who’s confronted with the most trying case of his life and Rajendra Kumar his protégé and ace lawyer, caught in moral dilemma while defending his client. Young Nanda plays the female interest opposite Rajendra Kumar as she’s caught in the crossfire of conflict of moralities between two people she loves dearly. The plot is about a court trail of the murder of an unscrupulous moneylender who blackmails for money.
The huge ensemble cast has many known faces – Om Prakash, Mehmood, Manmohan Krishna, Shashikala, Iftekar. As the petty impoverished thief who accidently stumbles over the crime scene and gets accused of the killing, Nana Patekar steals the show & if I recall rightly, he also bagged the Filmfare award of Best Supporting Actor for this film. Another interesting feature is the edgy and taut background score that has come from none other than the great Music Director, Salil Chowdhary, known for his lilting songs.
‘Kanoon’ wasn’t just a crime thriller film that simply entertained us. It was a great social commentary on the judicial systems and the criminal jurisprudence wherein guilt was proved based on material evidence that could be wrongly presented or interpreted. In essence the film was a strong indictment of the law of capital punishment at its core.
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