Deewaar

Plot

Anand Verma resides in a modest home with his wife Sumitra and their two young sons Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor). He is a principled and well-respected trade union leader, who leads struggling labourers on a strike as they are depending on him to better their lives with concessions from their owner Badri Prasad. However, Prasad retaliates by kidnapping Anand's family and forcing him to sign a contract giving away the labourers' rights, in order to save his family's lives. When the striking labourers learn about Anand's actions, they all curse him and thrash him nearly to death, unaware that Anand was blackmailed to do so. The labourers even persecute Anand's family, and some of them drunkenly capture Vijay and tattoo his left arm with the Hindi words "मेरा बाप चोर है” (English: ("My father is a thief"). Unable to bear the humiliation, Anand escapes from the town and decides to spend his remaining life aimlessly traveling in trains, abandoning his family for whom he had abandoned his principles and ideals. In desperation, Sumitra brings Vijay and Ravi to Mumbai and resorts to low-wage manual labour to raise her sons alone. Their home is on the footpath under a huge bridge that is home to millions of homeless poor people of the city.

As Vijay and Ravi grow up in the slums of Mumbai, Vijay has an acute awareness of his father's humiliation, for he has been victimized for his father's supposed misdeeds, and is reminded of his past by the ever-present tattoo on his arm. He also refuses to enter a temple, stating that he wishes to chart his own destiny and not beg for it from the deities. Vijay Verma starts out as a shoeshiner and later becomes a dockworker in his youth, sacrificing his own education in order to enable Ravi to study. On the other hand, Ravi is a perfect citizen and is unwavering in his commitment to law and righteousness. Although he is unable to obtain gainful employment, Ravi romances Veera, the daughter of DCP Narang, by whom he is sent for police training and soon earns the rank of Sub-Inspector. In the process of fighting for his rights, Vijay refuses to pay the weekly extortion to the henchmen of the shipyard owner Samant, who is also a crime boss. Vijay proceeds to thrash several of Samant's henchmen, causing his mother Sumitra to berate him. Vijay sarcastically asks her whether she expects him "also" to escape like a coward, implying that he criticises his father's actions, causing a perturbed Sumitra to slap Vijay and half-heartedly defend Anand. The news of Vijay’s beating of Samant’s men reaches Samant's rival, Mulk Raj Daavar, who hires Vijay to protect his smuggled gold bullion that has been thrice hijacked by Samant. Vijay sells the information to Samant to help him hijack the gold bullion, takes the money from Samant, then captures the gold bullion from his warehouse and hands it over to Daavar, who rewards Vijay with a huge sum of money, allowing him to purchase a palatial home for his family.

Production

Story and screenplay

The film's screenplay, story and dialogues were written by Salim–Javed (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar). The main inspiration for the plot was the film Gunga Jumna (1961), starring Dilip Kumar, which had a similar premise of two brothers on opposing sides of the law, with the elder criminal brother as the main character. Deewaar is thus considered to be a spiritual successor to Gunga Jumna. Salim–Javed credited Gunga Jumna as well as Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957) as the main inspirations for Deewaar, which they described as a "more urban, much more contemporary" take on their themes; while Mother India and Gunga Jumna took place in a rural context, Salim–Javed reinterpreted their themes in a contemporary urban context with Deewaar.

Amitabh Bachchan's character, Vijay, was loosely inspired by the real-life Mumbai underworld gangster Haji Mastan. Vijay's story arc in the film parallels that of Mastan's life, such as the rise from a humble dockyard porter to a powerful smuggler, and Mastan's rivalry with smuggler Sukkur Narayan Bakhia is similar to Vijay's rivalry with Samant (Madan Puri).

Salim–Javed's screenplay had dynamic dialogues and incorporated a number of symbolic motifs. For example, the scene where the two brothers meet as adults takes place under a bridge, symbolizing a bridge forming between the brothers. Set in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, the film's story of gangsters in Dharavi was a critique of socio-political inequality and injustice in Mumbai. The characterisations of the two brothers are sociologically contextualised to represent a form of urban conflict and drama, aimed at presenting a causal explanation for the sequence of events and Vijay's social alienation, with the narrative explaining his every action and decision, grounded in his memories and experiences.

The script generally has an atmosphere of secularism, while incorporating subtle religious motifs. The mother Sumitra (Nirupa Roy) and police brother Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) are religious Hindus, whereas the criminal brother Vijay (Bachchan) is generally not religious and "upset with God", yet he carries a badge numbered 786 which his Muslim co-worker, Rahim Chacha (Yunus Parvez), points out to be a number of religious significance in Islam (representing Bismillah) and has its own subplot. The 786 badge plays a powerful and symbolic role in several scenes, saving Vijay at key moments and signifying something ominous when he loses it.

Casting and filming

Bachchan's "angry young man" performance as Vijay in the film was inspired by Dilip Kumar's intense performance as Gunga in Gunga Jumna, which Bachchan sharpened and reinterpreted in a contemporary urban context reflecting the changing socio-political climate of 1970s India.

Salim–Javed "felt only Bachchan could do justice to Vijay's role." According to Akhtar, they "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." At Salim–Javed's insistence, Bachchan was cast in the role. Director Yash Chopra's first choices for Vijay and Ravi's roles were Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna respectively. After Anand rejected the script, casting plans changed and Khanna was to play Vijay and Navin Nischol was considered for Ravi. However, Salim–Javed had Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha in mind when they wrote the script; Sinha turned down the film when he heard Khanna was initially cast in the lead, due to a fallout between the two. Nirupa Roy's role as Sumitra Devi was also first offered to Vyjayanthimala; Nischol and Vyjayanthimala turned down the film after they found out Khanna would no longer be involved. Shashi Kapoor was subsequently cast as Ravi, and Nirupa Roy as Sumitra Devi.

In 2014, Bachchan revealed that his iconic look in the film – a "denim blue shirt worn with khakee pants and a rope dangling over the shoulder" – was the result of a mistake by the tailor. He said, "The knotted shirt and rope on the shoulder in [Deewaar] was an adjustment for an error in stitching, shirt too long so knotted it". In certain scenes, Bachchan had some input on Chopra's direction, such as the father's funeral scene where Bachchan, instead of lighting the pyre with his right hand, suggests to use his left hand to show off the tattoo with the inscription "mera baap chor hai" ("my father is a thief"). The film was shot mostly at night because Bachchan was also shooting for Ramesh Sippy's Sholay at that time.

The film contains a fight scene that involves Bachchan performing martial arts inspired by Hong Kong martial arts cinema, which Deewaar was one of the first to do in Indian cinema. Rather than following the Hollywood model, it follows the Hong Kong model, with an emphasis on acrobatics and stunts. The style of fighting seen in Deewaar combined kung fu (as it was perceived by Indians) with Indian martial arts (particularly Indian wrestling).

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the movie was composed by R. D. Burman, and the lyrics were penned by Sahir Ludhianvi. The soundtrack received praise and was notably one of the few Yash Chopra films not to contain vocals by Lata Mangeshkar.

Box office

At the Indian box office, the film grossed ₹75 million ($9 million). In Mumbai alone, the film grossed ₹10 million. In terms of footfalls, the film sold an estimated 31 million tickets at an average 1975 price of ₹2.40 per ticket. Adjusted for inflation, this is equivalent to an estimated ₹4.17 billion ($64 million) at an average 2017 price of ₹134.38 per ticket.

Critical reception and legacy

Upon release, Deewaar was a blockbuster, ranking as the fourth-highest-grossing Bollywood film of 1975, and received critical acclaim, with critics praising the story, dialogue and screenplay, as well as the performances of the cast, particularly those of Bachchan, Kapoor and Roy. Indiatimes ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. It is one of the three Hindi films featured in the 2017 edition of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the others being Mother India (1957) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995).

It was perceived by audiences to be anti-establishment, while Amitabh Bachchan's character Vijay was seen as a vigilante angry hero, establishing Bachchan's image as the "angry young man" of Indian cinema. This resonance was amplified by the film's release six months prior to India's Emergency period (June 25, 1975– March 21, 1977), a time of political repression under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that imposed strict censorship on media. In the 2025 book 1975: The Year That Transformed Bollywood by Pratik Majumdar, Deewaar is highlighted as part of 1975's "powerful line-up" of landmark movies, alongside Sholay, Chupke Chupke, Julie, Aandhi, and Nishant. Majumdar portrays 1975 as a "turning point" in Bollywood, where, despite censorship challenges, cinema produced a "blessing in disguise" of 15–30 films (out of 80 released) that captured the era's "hopes, fears, and complexities" through "courageous scripts." The book argues that Deewaar contributed to the "action film era" by fusing bold narratives on political disillusionment with commercial appeal, reflecting societal truths that remain relevant five decades later. With the unprecedented growth of slums across India at the time, Vijay was seen as a new kind of hero, with his suppressed rage giving a voice to the angst of the urban poor.

Deewaar is also remembered for its iconic dialogues written by Salim–Javed. The most famous example is when Shashi Kapoor delivers the line, "Mere paas maa hai" ("I have mother"), a line that is widely known in India and has become part of Indian popular culture. The film Loins of Punjab Presents (2007) mocked how the line is sometimes wrongly attributed to Amitabh Bachchan. It also established Parveen Babi as the "new Bollywood woman".

The film cemented the success of the writing duo Salim–Javed, who went on to write many more blockbuster films. After the success of this film, the value of film writers skyrocketed thanks to Salim–Javed, and they soon were being paid as highly as some actors at the time. Amitabh Bachchan described Salim–Javed's screenplay for Deewaar as "the perfect script" and "the best screenplay ever" in Indian cinema. Deewaar, one of the first Indian films with an action sequence modelled after Hong Kong martial arts cinema, popularised the use of martial arts sequences in Bollywood films from the 1970s to the 1990s. The style of fighting popularised by Deewaar, with acrobatics and stunts, and combining Chinese kung fu (as it was perceived by Indians, based on 1970s Hong Kong films) with Indian pehlwani wrestling, became the standard model for Bollywood action scenes up until the 1990s.

Awards and nominations

Deewaar received the Filmfare Best Movie Award of 1976, and also won six more Filmfare Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Dialogue, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Story, and Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor), and received two other nominations for Best Actor (Bachchan) and Best Supporting Actress (Roy).