Mera Faisla (1984) - Review in English

About the story: Raj Saxena (Sanjay Dutt) comes from a police family but has to live with the stigma that his father, Anand Saxena (Parikshat Sahni), was a corrupt traitor who cowardly committed suicide. When Major Verma (Pinchoo Kapoor) therefore denies him his daughter Rati’s (Rati Agnihotri) hand in marriage, Raj’s hatred against his father grows sky high and he decides to become a police officer himself and thus to prove that a criminal’s son not perforce is a criminal, too. Commissioner Rana (Pran), an old friend of the family, takes care of the young subinspector Raj who has no idea that Rana for years has been co-operating with the criminal Jacob (Kader Khan) and that it were these two who ruined his innocent father’s reputation and finally killed him. As they try to make even Raj their henchman, his grandmother (Nirupa Roy) reveals to him the truth about his father’s fate. Now there’s just one thing left for Raj to do: to restore his father’s honour and to revenge the injustice done to him...


When Mera Faisla was made, Sanjay stuck in a deep crisis. As son to two legends of the Hindi Cinema, Sunil Dutt and late Nargis, each and everyone of his first and partially rather stiff steps in front of the camera were watched overcritically. The fear of making mistakes and to failure, especially in his father’s eyes, haunted Sanjay and made him as vulnerable as his insecurity, his doubts about whom he could really trust upon, and his mother’s loss did. He numbed his loneliness and his inner pain with drugs and often appeared spaced-out on the sets. And he could not hide it completely. Even though he acts more laxly than in his first few films, his expression sometimes is alarmingly lifeless. In addition, he put on weight at that time, and I cannot believe it that Rajinder Singh nevertheless made him act topless in several scenes, which was looking agonizing. Sanjay was heading for a catastrophy. Today we know that he got his act together right in time: Shortly thereafter he went for a detoxication and a long-term therapy in the USA and returned clean and ready for a new life.

Mera Faisla (= My decision) is not a sensational but a solid film with a good story, a cast in which, besides the ones named above, also Jaya Pradha (Nisha) and Shakti Kapoor (Tony) attract attention, and a Sanjay Dutt in half a dozen different disguises (his appearance as a lady in pink with "her" song "Ho Allah Meri" is screamingly funny) but unfortunately not in best form because of his drug addiciton. Too bad that he didn’t make this film two or three years later.

Produced by Ranjit Virk; Directed by V. Rajinder Singh
144 Min.; DVD: Eros, English Subtitles (including songs)
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