Here dialogue writer Milap Milan Zaveri must be given top stars, as the dialogues fit the genre without being too cliche and pack in a few funny ones along the way.ĭirecting: Gupta has been crowned king copycat in the past, but credit where due he has crafted a good film here, with the right amount of action and item numbers to keep the audience engaged. One aspect which needs to be given credit to is the dialogue and any underworld film needs to be complete with ‘dialgoue-baazi’ and one liners, which need not be crass. As mentioned Zaidi’s book only dedicates 8 pages to Manya, but along with Gupta and his team they have created an engaging, layered and commercial film, humanising Manya along the way. What they all have successfully managed to do is take a lesser known underworld character, but an important one none the less and added his backstory, motivations, love interest, rise and ultimate death. Hussain Zaidi and Sanjay Gupta are credited with the story, with screenwriting credits going to Sanjay Gupta, Abhijeet Deshpande and Sanjay Bhatia. Dawood had avenged his brothers death, whilst Mumbai police had carried out its first official encounter, creating a precedence for many more encounters to follow. He was riddled with 6 bullets, fighting till the very end. The police were led to Wadala, following a rumoured tip off from Dawood.

Manya was eventually shot dead on 23rd January 1982, at the age of 37, after a two month police hunt. Manya killed reigning King of Mumbai Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Sabir. What is only 8 pages in Zaidi’s book, under a chapter titled Mumbai’s Hadley Chase and is about a gangster called Manya Surve, becomes a two and half hour film. Bollywood is no different, with every accomplished actor and director attempting the genre. Further, Sanjay Gupta is back after a long hiatus and John Abraham attempts the role of gangster for the first time.Ĭinema has always had a fascination for the underworld and their dons, creating cinematic magic, whenever their stories are told on the screen. If you have not had a chance to read the book, take it from us, it is an absolutely amazing book and having read the book recently, our expectations are sky high for the film.

Sanjay Gupta says without it he could not have made this film, Anil Kapoor called it by far the best book on the Mumbai mafia and John Abraham hailed Zaidi as a master storyteller. His most recent book is Dongri to Dubai: Six decades of the Mumbai Mafia and from this book has Shootout at Wadala been created. One of his previous best selling books was Black Friday, which Anurag Kashyap successfully transformed onto screen.

Hussain Zaidi is a Mumbai based investigative crime journalist, who has worked for some of India’s leading newspapers.

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