Coolie is a 1983 Indian Bollywood film directed by Manmohan Desai. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Kader Khan, Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar. It is about a railway coolie.

The film was an 'All Time Earner',it got the highest verdict[Equivalent to 'All Time Blockbuster' Today] present at that time by Trade Guide[Bollywood boxoffice magazine], and was among those rare movies, which crossed 1 Crore per territory.^[1] There were only 13 All Time Earner[Which crossed 1 Crore Rupees per territory] movies till 1984 and Coolie was among them. ^[2]

Background Information[link]

The film became famous even before its release when Amitabh Bachchan was critically injured on 26 July 1982 in the intestines while filming a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar which almost cost him his life. The crew was filming the shot at University Campus in Bangalore. His accident received wide world coverage and hit the headlines in the UK, something unheard of at the time, and many Indians prayed in temples or offered to sacrifice their own limbs to save him. Nevertheless he spent many months recovering and resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation^[3].

Bachchan resumed shooting and remarkably in the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he is injured is frozen and a message appears marking this as the scene in which he was injured.

Due to Bachchan's injury, the ending was changed. In the original, Amitabh died after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Manmohan Desai, thinking that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation^[4].

The movie was also accused of being a Communist-sympathizing and Communism-promoting film by certain viewers in the 1990s due to its recurring theme of equal financial distribution and prominent position of the "Hammer and Sickle" symbol, the most widely-known symbol of Communism. However, these ideas were soon disproved and the offensive ideas in the film were found to be purely coincidental, and the theorizers proved biased and opinionated.

Synopsis[link]

A wealthy, but evil man named Zafar Khan (Kader Khan), has fallen in love a girl named Salma (Waheeda Rahman) and wants to marry her, but she and her father do not let him. Zafar is arrested for various crimes and is imprisoned for 10 years, but when he is discharged, he sees that Salma is married to a good man named Aslam Khan (Satyendra Kapoor). Zafar Khan, wants to convince Salma to marry him but Salma refuses. Zafar plots his revenge by flooding the region in which Salma lives in, killing her father, injuring Aslam and Salma, causing her to lose her memory. During this catastrophe, Salma is also separated from her young son, Iqbal (Amitabh Bachchan). Zafar abducts Salma and tells the world she is his wife. He also adopts an infant from an orphanage in Kanpur, a boy named Sunny (Rishi Kapoor), for Salma to raise on the advice of a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Iqbal is reunited with his uncle, who has lost his wife and son in the flood. The uncle will raise Iqbal as his own, as they have no more family.

Years pass, and Iqbal and his uncle work as coolies. Iqbal has grown up to a be a dashing, confident young man, and is considered the leader of the local coolies. He organizes a labor strike, which brings the station to its knees. Sunny, a young, budding reporter, is covering the story. While speaking to Sunny, Iqbal sees a picture of Sunny's mother who turns out to be Salma. Iqbal rushes to Salma's house to see her after all these years, but upon meeting her son, she has no recollection of him. Zafar is infuriated by Iqbal's trespass and has his guards severely beat him, while he takes Salma to the psychiatrist to administer electric shocks on her so that her memory never returns.

Iqbal and Sunny become friends, and both find love, Iqbal with a Christian girl Julie D'Costa (Rati Agnihotri) and Sunny with a childhood sweetheart. Things are looking up, but the coolies uncover a banking and housing scandal against them. After a series of run-ins with the corrupt parties, Iqbal finds himself in a fight to the death with Zafar. Salma returns at a very pivotal scene in the film, with her old memories intact and she publicly testifies against Zafar and how he destroyed her family. In the crowd is an old man, who turns out to be Iqbal's long-lost father. Also, Iqbal's uncle recognizes a birthmark on Sunny, proving that Sunny was indeed the son he thought he had lost in the great flood. The family is reunited, much to the fury of Zafar. Iqbal is shot several times by Zafar, but he manages to throw Zafar off a building, killing him instantly. Coolies from all faiths pray hard for his recovery, and Iqbal recovers from his injuries.

Cast[link]

• Amitabh Bachchan....Iqbal Khan
• Waheeda Rehman.... Salma
• Rishi Kapoor.... Sunny
• Kader Khan .... Zafar Khan
• Rati Agnihotri .... Julie D' Costa
• Amrish Puri ... Mr D' Costa
• Om Shivpuri...Mr. Om Puri
• Tun Tun...Mother of 7 babies
• Shoma Anand...Deepa Iyengar
• Suresh Oberoi...Vicky Puri
• Goga Kapoor...Goga
• Unnamed Eagle... Allah Rakha
• Puneet Issar.. as Zafar's Sidekick
• Nilu Phule.. as Nathu (Mama)

Soundtrack[link]

Famous Dialogue[link]

"Apani Tarif jara lambi hai bachpan se hain sar pe allah ka haath aur allahrakha hai apne sath pita hu panch so pachpan bidi kam karta hun kuli ka aur naam hai iqbal"

"yeh majdur ke sathi kain yeh hum jaise garibon ka pet pal bhi sakte hain aur aap jaise amiron ka pet phad bhi sakte hain"

Boxoffice[link]

The film was an 'All Time Earner', it got the highest verdict[Equivalent to 'All Time Blockbuster' Today] present at that time by Trade Guide[Bollywood boxoffice magazine], and was among those rare movies, which crossed 1 Crore per territory.^[5] There were only 13 All Time Earner[Crossed 1 Crore per territory] movies till 1984 and Coolie was among them. ^[6] The film was biggest Hit of 80's Decade.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Coolie at the Internet Movie Database