I’ve spent the entire morning googling for information about Khanjar: The Knife
(2003) and, apart from a comprehensive cast list on the Internet Movie
Database, I’ve come up with nothing. This is not surprising; Khanjar
is not a very good movie, so it wouldn’t have a rabid fanbase. The
lack of information is a problem for me, though, because I am 99%
certain that Khanjar was cobbled together from old footage
starring Tabu and Suniel Shetty, interspersed with new footage starring
cheaper actors. I’d love to be able to provide some sort of independent
confirmation.
As the film begins, wealthy businessman Mr. Kumar (Mohan Joshi) is sitting in the front garden with his wife, Laxmi (Trishna.) As their sons, Raja and Ajay, play in the background, the couple playfully argue over whether the child Laxmi is carrying will be a boy or a girl. This moment of domestic bliss is interrupted by Sadashiv (Chander Sharma), Kumar’s former business manager. The meeting does not go well; it turns out that Kumar is still sore about Sadashiv embezzling two and a half million rupees from him.
A few days later, Kumar and Laxmi are summoned by the police and told that Sadashiv, unable to bear the shame of his crime, has set himself on fire, killing himself and coincidentally rendering his body unrecognizable. He also left behind a letter, addressed to Laxmi. In the letter, he addresses her as his secret lover and urges her to take care of their secret love-children, Ajay and the as-yet-unborn baby. Despite Laxmi’s protests, Kumar chooses to take the word of his toadlike, spiteful, dishonest, and allegedly dead former business manager, because Kumar is an idiot.
Years later, Laxmi is living in honest poverty with her grown children Ajay (Privthi) and Kumal. Ajay has found a job, and his mother is thrilled until he tells her that the job is in Simla, scene of her earlier humiliation. After hearing her story, Ajay declares that he will take the job, and then spend all his spare time searching for his father. Laxmi decides that this is wonderful.
Upon arriving in Simla, Ajay gets mixed up in a fight between a gang of thugs and a stranger named Jimmy (Rahul.) If Bollywood has taught us anything, it’s that fighting with random groups of thugs is the most efficient means of interpersonal bonding, so Ajay and Jimmy immediately become fast friends. This is lucky for Ajay, as it turns out that Jimmy is his new boss. The thugs in question were sent by local gangster Pammi Don (Gulshan Grover), Jimmy’s rival for the affections of Shilpa (Tabu.) Of course, since neither Jimmy nor Pammi ever appear on screen with Shilpa, the smart money is on Raja (Suniel Shetty) winning her heart, despite her obvious dislike.
Raja works on a nearby stud farm, where local drunk Anand (Pankaj Dheer) likes to hang out and drink. Anand has an incredible tale of romantic woe, worse than any widow, which he absolutely refuses to tell until Raja asks nicely. Once, Anand loved a rich girl named Anita (Archana Puran Singh), but she eventually rejected him. (Yeah. That’s it. It’s pretty pathetic when I can top your ultimate tale of tragic woe.)
Ajay, meanwhile, has picked up a love interest of his own. Soon after arriving in Simla, he falls for the lovely Nisha, and devotes all his time to wooing her, rather than, for instance, working or trying to find his long lost estranged father. When Laxmi finds out about this, she’s thrilled. (Laxmi is a very agreeable woman.)
All of the assorted romantic subplots are completely unrelated to the main plot, however. Jimmy’s father is a Mister Kumar. (Not that Kumar, a different Kumar.) This Kumar has a set of four close friends who are being killed off one by one, on the thirteenth of every month, by a mysterious figure whom I like to call “Cowboy Darth Vader.” And this is where the seams start to show; the identity of Cowboy Darth Vader is supposed to be a big secret, but every time he kills someone, we get a dramatic shot of his face. (The same shot of his face; this movie is barely over two hours, and the running time is padded with recycled footage.) That’s alright, though, because when Cowboy Darth Vader is revealed, it’s not the man whose face we’ve been shown, or even the man who keeps a leather trenchcoat, cowboy hat, huge rubber gloves and a big knife in his closet.
Suniel and Tabu never actually appear on screen with any of the other stars. The director does his best to disguise this; on a few occasions, other character stalk to what is supposed to be Raja’s back, and when Ajay and Raja fight side by side in the climactic fight, the hood of Raja’s shirt is pulled over his face for no apparent reason. The other characters have plenty of dialogue to tie Raja and Shilpa into the broader plot (since none of the Raja/Shilpa scenes relate to the murder plot, or the separated family plot) and to resolve gaps in the narrative (since the Raja/Shilpa romance is actually resolved off screen, and I’m still not sure how.)
I’m not sure what failed movie the Raja/Shilpa footage comes from; it appears to be a fairly conventional romance, in which the poor boy woos the rich, snotty girl, but unlike Anand’s incredible tale of woe, he succeeds! They have been jammed into a murder mystery, however, and it just doesn’t work. We get a film with too much plot, and far too many characters. If Khanjar isn’t cobbled together from old footage, then the director did a wonderful job of making it seem as if it had been.
As the film begins, wealthy businessman Mr. Kumar (Mohan Joshi) is sitting in the front garden with his wife, Laxmi (Trishna.) As their sons, Raja and Ajay, play in the background, the couple playfully argue over whether the child Laxmi is carrying will be a boy or a girl. This moment of domestic bliss is interrupted by Sadashiv (Chander Sharma), Kumar’s former business manager. The meeting does not go well; it turns out that Kumar is still sore about Sadashiv embezzling two and a half million rupees from him.
A few days later, Kumar and Laxmi are summoned by the police and told that Sadashiv, unable to bear the shame of his crime, has set himself on fire, killing himself and coincidentally rendering his body unrecognizable. He also left behind a letter, addressed to Laxmi. In the letter, he addresses her as his secret lover and urges her to take care of their secret love-children, Ajay and the as-yet-unborn baby. Despite Laxmi’s protests, Kumar chooses to take the word of his toadlike, spiteful, dishonest, and allegedly dead former business manager, because Kumar is an idiot.
Years later, Laxmi is living in honest poverty with her grown children Ajay (Privthi) and Kumal. Ajay has found a job, and his mother is thrilled until he tells her that the job is in Simla, scene of her earlier humiliation. After hearing her story, Ajay declares that he will take the job, and then spend all his spare time searching for his father. Laxmi decides that this is wonderful.
Upon arriving in Simla, Ajay gets mixed up in a fight between a gang of thugs and a stranger named Jimmy (Rahul.) If Bollywood has taught us anything, it’s that fighting with random groups of thugs is the most efficient means of interpersonal bonding, so Ajay and Jimmy immediately become fast friends. This is lucky for Ajay, as it turns out that Jimmy is his new boss. The thugs in question were sent by local gangster Pammi Don (Gulshan Grover), Jimmy’s rival for the affections of Shilpa (Tabu.) Of course, since neither Jimmy nor Pammi ever appear on screen with Shilpa, the smart money is on Raja (Suniel Shetty) winning her heart, despite her obvious dislike.
Raja works on a nearby stud farm, where local drunk Anand (Pankaj Dheer) likes to hang out and drink. Anand has an incredible tale of romantic woe, worse than any widow, which he absolutely refuses to tell until Raja asks nicely. Once, Anand loved a rich girl named Anita (Archana Puran Singh), but she eventually rejected him. (Yeah. That’s it. It’s pretty pathetic when I can top your ultimate tale of tragic woe.)
Ajay, meanwhile, has picked up a love interest of his own. Soon after arriving in Simla, he falls for the lovely Nisha, and devotes all his time to wooing her, rather than, for instance, working or trying to find his long lost estranged father. When Laxmi finds out about this, she’s thrilled. (Laxmi is a very agreeable woman.)
All of the assorted romantic subplots are completely unrelated to the main plot, however. Jimmy’s father is a Mister Kumar. (Not that Kumar, a different Kumar.) This Kumar has a set of four close friends who are being killed off one by one, on the thirteenth of every month, by a mysterious figure whom I like to call “Cowboy Darth Vader.” And this is where the seams start to show; the identity of Cowboy Darth Vader is supposed to be a big secret, but every time he kills someone, we get a dramatic shot of his face. (The same shot of his face; this movie is barely over two hours, and the running time is padded with recycled footage.) That’s alright, though, because when Cowboy Darth Vader is revealed, it’s not the man whose face we’ve been shown, or even the man who keeps a leather trenchcoat, cowboy hat, huge rubber gloves and a big knife in his closet.
Suniel and Tabu never actually appear on screen with any of the other stars. The director does his best to disguise this; on a few occasions, other character stalk to what is supposed to be Raja’s back, and when Ajay and Raja fight side by side in the climactic fight, the hood of Raja’s shirt is pulled over his face for no apparent reason. The other characters have plenty of dialogue to tie Raja and Shilpa into the broader plot (since none of the Raja/Shilpa scenes relate to the murder plot, or the separated family plot) and to resolve gaps in the narrative (since the Raja/Shilpa romance is actually resolved off screen, and I’m still not sure how.)
I’m not sure what failed movie the Raja/Shilpa footage comes from; it appears to be a fairly conventional romance, in which the poor boy woos the rich, snotty girl, but unlike Anand’s incredible tale of woe, he succeeds! They have been jammed into a murder mystery, however, and it just doesn’t work. We get a film with too much plot, and far too many characters. If Khanjar isn’t cobbled together from old footage, then the director did a wonderful job of making it seem as if it had been.
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