Elaan-E-Jung (1989) User Reviews

Garam Dharam's Box office Dhamaka

[nadkarnisumeet · 6/10 · 18 August 2020]

Elaan-E-Jung review :

Director Anil Sharma is well known for his blockbuster hit 'Gadar Ek Prem Katha' (2001) in which Sunny Deol destroyed Pakistan with a hand pump. But not many are aware of the directors successful collaboration with Sunny paajis pappa ji Dharmendra in the 80s.

1987 belonged to Dharmendra where he gave multiple hits (Hukumat, Aag Hi Aag, Insaniyat Ke Dushman, Loha, Watan Ke Rakhwale, Mard Ki Zabaan, Dadagiri, Jaan Hatheli Pe, Insaf Ki Pukar).

Hukumat, directed by Anil Sharma, was the biggest hit of the year celebrating a Silver jubilee run at the iconic Minerva cinema, Mumbai. Jee haan, the Sholay wala theatre.

Dharam played ACP Arjun Singh who takes on the diabolical DBDN (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) who had killed his father (a hamming Parikshit Sahni) eons ago. The formula made for a typical maar dhaad entertainer which the 80s audience lapped up generously.

Buoyed by the success of Hukumat, Anil Sharma announced Elaan-E-Jung repeating not just its plot line but also pitting Dharam once again with Sadashiv Amrapurkar. Dharmendra was called Arjun Thakur instead of Singh and Sadashiv was General DJN instead of DBDN.

By comparison, Elaan-E-Jung was more cheesy for its dialogues bordering on unintended hilarity.

"Main Hoon Naag, Kaala Nag. Saamne aaye toh apne baap ko das loon. Phir yeh desh kya cheez hai".

"Totti, Ae Totti!!".

The film makes for an ideal lazy sunday afternoon viewing. Best enjoyed over drinks with friends!! Thats how I had seen this movie during my CA articleship days.

Classic Shahkaal flick - Dharam's last roar

[shahkaal · 8/10 · 20 July 2005]

A film for the ages - Elaan-e-Jung is a film by Anil Sharma - an interesting director whose resume has mixed sensitive family films with violently jingoistic material such as this.

Coming off the success of their repugnant film "Hukumat", Anil and Dharamendra made this follow-up with more of the stuff that made Hukumat successful - loudness, extreme violence, jingoism and lack of any logic. This is a brilliant mix - akin to bhel-puri - which places this film in Shahkaal's top ten films of all time.

The standouts are Amrapukar as a classic Daku/Bond villain who utters peculiar exclamations, and Joginder as Sattar Medha - a cross-border gunrunner who drinks the blood of 70 men for breakfast and dies from a secret bomb implanted in his arm. Other stalwarts include Bob Christo, Dev Kumar, and many other legendary sideys.

Dharam looks very haggard and the whole film is roughly shot and edited as though all involved were having too much of a good time. All in all - a great achievement and almost as good as "Return of the Jewel Thief" in its ability to reverse all progress in Indian film by twenty years - harking back to the films of Shahkaal's disturbed childhood.

Anil went on to make "Ghadar" which was a very well-made movie, and hopefully, he will get back to making films like Elaan-e-Jung once his flirtation with quality has run its course. I give all credit to Amrapurkar and Joginder who have the ability to leapfrog any film into Shahkaal's List just by their very presence. Alas, how little one sees of these masters on film these days!

If you have got this far in my review, you are a soul-mate so please see Shahkaal's reviews for various later stage Dev Anand and classic Ramsay brothers films. May such good films continue to be made!