A Nana Patekar classic is a rare Bollywood film remade in Hollywood; Marvel star Vincent D'Onofrio took over his role
Here's the latest update from the Hollywood/Marvel world:
Bollywood has been accused of ‘copying’ Hollywood films for far too long. There are filmmakers whose filmography sections on Wikipedia have a separate column describing ‘adapted from’, so endemic is this in Hindi cinema. Even today, when studios buy rights for official remakes, Bollywood has often been caught playing catch-up. The reverse - Hollywood remaking a Hindi movie - is a rarity. But it did happen in 2015, and it happened with the movie that first shot Nana Patekar to stardom in the 80s.
Adding to this, Nana Patekar won his first National Award for the 1989 rollout, Parinda. The Nana Patekar classic remade in Hollywood In 1989, Vidhu Vinod Chopra made Parinda, often regarded as one of the first Bollywood films to set a template for depicting the underworld and gangsters realistically. The movie starred Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff as brothers who live and work under Anna ( Nana Patekar ), a dreaded don. The movie, which also starred Madhuri Dixit, was a commercial success with its music becoming quite popular. Tumse Milke, sung by Suresh Wadkar and Asha Bhosle, topped the charts. Critically acclaimed, Parinda went on to win two National Movie Awards and five Filmfare Awards, and was India's official selection for the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Movie. Nana Patekar won his first National Award for the movie.
Meanwhile, In 1998, Parinda was remade in Tamil as Aasai Thambi. But the surprise remake was revealed in 2012, when Vidhu Vinod Chopra shared he was set to adapt the movie for American audiences with a Hollywood cast. Abhijat Joshi co-wrote the screenplay titled Broken Horses. Anton Yelchin and Chris Marquette were cast as the two leads, alongside Vincent D’Onofrio as Julius Hench, this movie’s Anna.
Notably, Set in the American Midwest, Broken Horses was shot in the style of the typical American Westerns with sprawling ranches, cowboys, gunfights, and a signature musical score. Tom Stern, the cinematographer long associated with Clint Eastwood films, was on board, while Oscar-nominated composer John Debney composed the score. Reliance Entertainment and Fox Star Studios came on board to produce and distribute the movie worldwide. At 1 hour and 41 minutes, Broken Horses was considerably shorter than Parinda, which ran for almost 2.5 hours.
As per the latest buzz, The biggest casting coup for the movie was Vincent D’Onofrio. Even though he was still two years away from playing the Kingpin in the Daredevil series, the star was already a known and respected name, having worked in Full Metal Jacket, Men In Black, and The Cell. Apart from this, he had spent 10 years starring in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, one of America’s most-watched TV shows. The casting of Anton Yelchin was equally impressive. At the time, only 24, Anton had already starred in the Star Trek reboot and Terminator Salvation.
In further updates, Despite a stacked cast and a competent crew, Broken Horses did not fare well. The critics called it ‘overwrought’, and it has an approval rating of only 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. Made on a modest budget of around $15 million, Broken Horses was a commercial disaster, earning less than ₹ 1 crore rupees in India and just $65K in the US. Its global ‘haul’ of less than $300K was one of the lowest for a mainstream Hollywood movie that year.
On top of that, The failure of Broken Horses did not dampen Parinda’s legacy, though. Over the years, it has been included in News18's 2013 list of the "100 greatest Indian films of all time", Mint's list of "70 iconic films of Indian cinema", Filmfare's "100 Filmfare Days" series, the "70 iconic movies of independent India" list and the book 100 Bollywood Films by Rachel Dwyer. Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Nikkhil Advani, and Dibakar Banerjee have credited the movie for impacting their journeys. Nana Patekar’s performance has been hailed as one of the first ‘realistic’ depictions of a violent villain in mainstream Hindi cinema.
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Movie Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world. Read More
Source: Hindustan Times