Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda is one of the first Hindi films dealing with life in the Mumbai underworld and one of the most realistic of its kind. Stylishly presented, the film is excellently directed and is aided by fantastic cinematography, great editing, beautiful music and natural acting. As opposed to most of the Hindi movies of that time, the story of Parinda is devoid of clichés, and the screenplay as well as the dialogues are well written. There are neither the typical courageous action heroes nor the exaggerated fantasy action sequences one gets to see so much in Hindi films, though at some points you do feel its loyalty to the general Hindi film style (that's called commercial pressure). Chopra portrays the relationship between the two brothers authentically, as he does with practically every other relationship in the film.
The narrative is very focused and taut, letting the director create the required mood for a gripping drama of its sort. The film's emotional impact is thus strong, though it does get a bit too slow and dark at places. The acting is for the most part excellent. This is one of Jackie Shroff's finest performances, powerful and heartfelt, strong and restrained. Nana Patekar plays the psychologically disturbed fire-phobic Anna with intensity and conviction, portraying every negative shade of his character in his well-known inimitable style. Madhuri Dixit is lovely in a role that is not very substantial. However, Anil Kapoor is just okay and his often childish and overly naive on-screen persona gets on your nerves from time to time. His character's transformation was also too quick to be believable. This is of course not entirely his fault.
Which brings me to the next point. Parinda, though compelling and innovative for its time, is not without its flaws. While RD Burman's music is stupendous as always and managed to relieve the film's raw tension, as it was done with the soulful and memorable "Tum Se Mil Ke", the other melodious songs seemed inappropriate in such a dark thriller and often distracted from the seriousness of the situation. The marriage song, for one, was completely redundant. Additionally, some of the scenes towards the end were quite implausible and went a bit over-the-top, though I really liked the film's final scene, which was overwhelming. Overall, Parinda is an enjoyable and impressive gangster movie known today as a favourite cult movie among lovers of Indian cinema. It's easy to see why. It was different and entertaining, but its intentions were stronger than its actual quality.
