Qayamat: City Under Threat

Qayamat: City Under Threat
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Harry Baweja
Screenplay by	Harry Baweja Suparn Verma
Story by	Harry Baweja
Produced by	Pammi Baweja
Starring	Ajay Devgn Sunil Shetty Sanjay Kapoor Arbaaz Khan Isha Koppikar Riya Sen Neha Dhupia Aashish Chaudhary
Cinematography	Sanjay F. Gupta
Edited by	Merzin Tavaria
Music by	Nadeem-Shravan Salim–Sulaiman (Score)
Distributed by	Baweja Movies
Release date	11 July 2003 (2003-07-11)
Running time	157 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹16 crore (US$2.1 million)[1]
Box office	₹28.52 crore (US$3.8 million)[1]

Qayamat: City Under Threat is a Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Harry Baweja^[2] released on 11 July 2003.^[3] It is a remake of the 1996 film The Rock.^[4][5]

The film was an average at the box office upon its release. The action scenes and story of the movie were so highly praised that the demand from fans for a sequel was quite high. The film completed 100 days on single screen theatres in Mumbai, Indore, Bhopal, Delhi.^{[citation needed]}

Plot[]

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has assigned the case of three terrorists to Akram Sheikh (Sunil Shetty). The three terrorists are two brothers Ali and Abbas Ramani, expert chemical and software engineers (Sanjay Kapoor and Arbaaz Khan) and their common girlfriend, Laila (Isha Koppikar). They are accomplices of a plan masterminded by an evil Pakistani military man named Brigadier Rashid (Deep Dhillon) who is the leader of ISI(Inter-Services Intelligence). Ali, Abbas, and Laila hitch a plan to extort money from the Indian government, leave in a ship to Pakistan and take asylum from them. They take control of Elphinston Jail, in the city of Mumbai and using the help of a corrupt scientist, Gopal (Chunky Pandey) (a part of a team headed by Rahul (Aashish Chaudhary), investigating the effects of a deadly virus which could kill any living organism within a 3-kilometer radius.), they load three missiles with the virus. They then take a group of 213 tourists hostage in the jail, including Rahul's girlfriend Sheetal (Riya Sen) and demand a ransom of 1500 crores from the government within 24 hours, failing which they will release the missile into major water bodies in Mumbai, thus creating an apocalypse (Qayamat).

Akram asks the Chief Minister to allow him to release Rachit (Ajay Devgn), a man who has previous experience of escaping from Elphinston Jail, a feat which has never been accomplished in history, to get help in entering the jail, through the very route which he had used to escape. Rachit is a man who has been silent for a long time now, owing to the fact that the love of his life, Sapna (Neha Dhupia), was killed the night he was arrested. The main point of note here was that Rachit was an associate of Ali and Abbas and had been double-crossed by them, leading to his arrest. In turn, they had killed Sapna. However, unknown to Rachit, she was still alive. Akram and his team, which includes Rahul use all the help, they can to enter the jail through, first, an underwater route, and then a maze of tunnels through which Rachit had escaped. they successfully get to the septic tank of the jail, but a mole in the CBI gives the news of the team's arrival to Ali and Abbas, whose men kill the whole team in a brutal gunfight, resulting in Akram's death as well. Rahul and Rachit are the only ones that are alive.

Rachit suffers from severe mental trauma, the effects of which can be seen every 12 hours, whereby he starts hallucinating and sees odd shadows everywhere. He has even lost his power of speech due to this. These effects are taken away, when Sapna, who is now at the CBI headquarters, calls him on a walkie-talkie and assures him of her true love and the fact that she is indeed alive. This is enough for Rachit as he gets up and single-handedly takes out all of Ali and Abbas's men, one by one.

Meanwhile, Rahul is also able to disarm the missiles one by one. However, while Rachit is taking out some more of the men, Ali gets to the last missile and tries to release it. Laila captures Rahul on gunpoint, saying she will kill Rahul if Rachit does not leave Abbas. Rahul asks Rachit to let him die, but, Rachit shoots Rahul in the leg. Rahul falls down, and Rachit shoots Laila in the head. Laila dies. Abbas tries to escape however, Rachit manages to kill Abbas in the process. Rachit disarms the missile and kills Ali after firing the rocket straight at him. Thus, the city is saved in the nick of time. At the end of the film, Rachit reunites with Sapna and reveals that he can talk.

Cast[]

• Ajay Devgan as Rachit
• Suniel Shetty as Akram Sheikh, CBI officer
• Neha Dhupia as Sapna, Rachit's love interest
• Sanjay Kapoor as Abbas Rehmani
• Arbaaz Khan as Ali Rehmani
• Isha Koppikar as Laila
• Aashish Chaudhary as Rahul Gupta
• Deep Dhillon as Brigadier Rashid-ul-Haq
• Riya Sen as Sheetal
• Chunky Pandey as Gopal
• Ayub Khan as Billu
• Anjan Srivastav as CM of Maharashtra
• Kulbhushan Kharbanda as CBI Chief Khurana
• Govind Namdev as Maharashtra Home Minister
• Raveena Tandon (Special Appearance)

Production[]

Harry Baweja had offered the leading role to Urmila Matondkar but it did not materialise due to Urmila's date problems. The film marked the comeback of Chunky Pandey to Bollywood after a stint in Bengali films since the late 1990s.^[6] Neha Dhupia's voice was dubbed by dubbing artist Rajanika Ganguly Mukherjee as the director thought her voice did not suit her character perfectly.

The Elphinston Jail of Mumbai copy described in it was originally situated in Diu Island, Daman & Diu, U.T, India.^[7]

Soundtrack[]

The music is composed by Nadeem Shravan and the lyrics are by Sameer. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 21,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fifth highest-selling.^[8]

Notes[]

External links[]

• Qayamat: City Under Threat at IMDb