Josh (Devanagari: जोश, translation: "Frenzy") is a 2000 Bollywood action movie directed by Mansoor Khan. The film stars Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles. Chandrachur Singh, Sharad Kapoor, Priya Gill and Vivek Vaswani appear in supporting roles. The film became the fourth highest-grossing film in India in 2000.[2]
The plot is based on the English movie West Side Story
The film starts in a coastal city of Goa, a strange noble town called Vasco, named after Alberto Vasco, the richest man who used to live in Vasco in 1958 but has now died. The film then drops to Vasco, Goa, 1980, where there are two gangs who rule. Gang no. 1 called the Bichoos (Hindi: Scorpions), who are Hindus, while Gang no. 2 is called Eagles, who are Christians.
The Bichoo gang's leader is Prakash (Sharad Kapoor), while the Eagles are led by Max (Shah Rukh Khan). They are all enemies, they fight, run, chase, and beat. But they are usually stopped from fights by Father Jacob, or the Town Inspector (Sharat Saxena). One day Prakash's brother Rahul (Chandrachur Singh) comes to visit after 2 years, who is a master-chef working in Mumbai. Rahul loves Goa the more he sees of it, and as he tours around Vasco, he meets Shirley (Aishwarya Rai), the twin sister of Max and he falls in love with her straightaway.
Knowing about Eagles and Bicchhoo rivalry, Rahul keeps his mouth closed. He opens a pastry shop 'Treat House' and settles in Vasco. Meanwhile, he becomes part of the Eagles-Bichchoo rivalry, and gets closer to Shirley. The whole situation is unprecedented in this city, which gets all the more intriguing when Rahul comes across a secret about Max and Shirley's past; a secret that will change their lives forever, and that, which leads to a death. He comes to know that Max and Shirley were actually the illegitimate children of Alberto Vasco, the founder of the town. Rahul wants to reveal this to Shirley in a letter but due to circumstances it falls in the hands of Prakash. Prakash plans to murder Max, to get his father's lands worth Rupees 20 lacs [2 millions]. This leads to fight sequence between both, where Max accidentally shoots Prakash while defending himself. Max is arrested and his trial puts a rift between Shirley and Rahul. Max is about to go to the gallows, but the truth is finally revealed by Rahul and he acknowledges his brother's mistake.
The story ends with a happy note while Rahul and Shirley are married, Max too marries his love interest Roseanne (Priya Gill).
The PlanetBollywood gave the film 7.5/10 and wrote "Mansoor succeeds as a director in keeping the movie fast and interesting, though it is the characters who come out much stronger than the movie".[3] Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama noted "On the whole, JOSH is a well made film with great performances and a hit musical score. But the Goan ambience will restrict its prospects in some states due to lack of identification. Also, an average second half and a weak climax are major limitations".[4] Upon release, the film tasted the success at the box office collecting 33,00,00,000[2] Originally Salman Khan was selected to play the lead role and participated in shooting for one week, but had to withdraw from the movie due to date issue, only to be replaced by Shah Rukh Khan.
In the Hindi movie Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, a parody of the Eagles gang was done in which Rajpal Yadav played one of the gang members.