Lootere

 Lootere (1993) was one of three movies starring Juhi Chawla and Sunny Deol that came out in 1993.  The most famous of these movies was Darr, the movie in which Sunny Deol was so comprehensively out-charismad by plucky newcomer Shah Rukh Khan that audiences cheered for the bad guy and Khan and Chawla went on to star in a long series of romantic comedies together.  Shah Rukh isn't in Lootere, though, so let's see how Deol fares this time.

Things start on a grim note, with police officer Karan (Deol) having a nightmare about a woman named Anjali (Chawla) being thrown off a cliff by a gang of thugs.  Karan is working in a secluded rural area now, but Bombay's police commissioner (Subbiraj) drops by to deliver useful exposition, though only after "testing" Karan by faking a  bloody attack on the police station.  In short, Karan was supposed to be protecting Anjali from a crimelord named Chengez Lala (the usually cuddly Anupam Kher, playing very much against type.)  He failed, and Lala used his influence to have Karan transferred away from the city, but that's over now; Karan is going back to Bombay.

The commissioner encourages Karan to pursue his revenge rather than waste time doing actual police work, and offers the full resources of the department, but all Karan wants is his friend and former partner Ali (Chunkey Pandey.)  Ali has quit the force and is now running some sort of illegal bar, but Karan gives an inspiring speech and the partners are ready to begin their quest.  Step one: an extended flashback.

As the flashback begins, Lala has murdered a police officer at a party he was throwing, attended by some of Bombay's most respectable citizens, and the only person present who really reacts is bar singer Anjali.  She places a call to the police, offering to act as an eye witness, and Karan and Ali are assigned to bring her to the station.  They do, after rescuing her from the middle of a musical number and escaping via horse drawn carriage for some inexplicable reason.  That works about as well as you would expect, especially when the bad guys have cars and motorcycles, but Karan is very, very good at punching people, and they reach the station safely.

Anjali is terrified and wants to recant.  Karan convinces her to stand firm by bringing in the officer's widow and son and telling Anjali to explain to them why she won't testify.  She's placed in a safehouse, but Lala's men kill everyone there except Anjali, hoping to intimidate her into staying silent rather than solving their problem then and there.  

The city isn't safe, so Karan takes her to a secluded cabin in the mountains.  They have twenty four days until the trial, and so the attractive and spirited woman and the brave, pushy and kind of annoying man get to know each other, argue, and inevitably fall in love.

Lala has his men searching the city to find the woman that he should have killed when he had the chance.  Well, most of them.  His henchman Sikander (Naseeruddin Shah), at once the coolest, most effective, and most loyal of his men, appears at the party and then vanishes from the movie entirely.  He may be offscreen canoodling with Lala's sister Devyani (Pooja Bedi.)  

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, Karan asks Anjali to marry him.  She accepts, and he calls Ali at the police station to give him the happy news and invite him to be a witness.  he also tells Ali exactly where and when they'll be, which is a mistake, since there is a mole at the police station who was listening in on the phone conversation and immediately called Lala, blurting out the address before Ali could stop him.  So Lala's men show up, Anjali is tossed off the cliff, Karan is brutally beaten by henchmen who attack him all at once rather than one at a time, and the flashback ends.

Back in the present, Karan is planning his revenge, since that's the only thing he has left to live for.  At least until he and Ali drive past a temple and he sees Anjali, very much alive.  he gives chase, only to be interrupted by Sikander.  Karan knows she's alive, and Ali is willing to support his friend no matter what, and so they set out to gather information by means of a wacky scheme involving Ali dressing up as a German woman.  This isn't funny, and it's a seismic shift in tone, but at least it doesn't last long.

Anjali is indeed alive.  She survived the fall, and Lala decided to keep her alive rather than finally killing the woman who could put him in prison because . . . I don't know.  Some nonsense about death being too merciful.  Instead he hands her over to Sikander, encouraging his henchman to do whatever he wants with her.  but while Sikander is a killer and a drunk and a thug, he's not a rapist, so what he wants to do is keep Anjali safe, even thrashing some of his fellow goons who try to take advantage of her.  Anjali slowly grows to trust Sikander, and he begins to change for the better through her influence.  But he can't let her go, and he does not want Karan to take away the only person who treats him as a human being rather than an instrument of violence.

Like a lot of early Juhi Chawla characters, it is Anjali's role in life to suffer nobly; this movie came out in 1993, before Bollywood discovered that Juhi Chawla is really funny.  Despite that, Anjali is the real hero here; she's anything but fearless, but even when terrified out of her mind she stands her ground.  Karan does all the punching, but basically every victory in the movie is thanks to Anjali's courage.  It's really rare to see a female character of the era display so much agency, let alone drive the entire plot.

Karan can't help but be a little overshadowed.  There's just not much to the part; he's a pretty typical action hero of the era.  He's brave, prone to violence and solemn speeches, and he somehow manages to woo the heroine by annoying her, but there's nothing surprising about him.  Sunny Deol does his best, but he doesn't have much to work with.

And then there's acclaimed actor Naseeruddin Shah, who injects tremendous depth into the role of Henchman Number One.  Sikander is deeply flawed but very complex, and he has an actual character arc, which is more than the film's hero gets.  Sorry, Sunny.