"Class of 83" is fictionalised dramatisation of events happening in 1980s Bombay, though certain characters are based on the non fiction book "The class of 83" by S. Hussain Zaidi, there is absolutely no similarities between the two other than just the name. Half of the movie is based on training the police recruits at the academy under the watchful eyes of the Dean Vijay Singh played by Bobby Deol.
But the training scenes aren't detailed in any way, showing not just plot holes but large gaps in the poorly written screenplay. The middle portion of the movie is a little bit strong when the rookie cops take charge. There is a strong emphasis of events happenings in the mid 1980s Bombay helped by some timely additions of archival footages by the editor namely the Mill strikes, Dawood Ibrahim gang (Umar Kaleskar here) and the B.R.A gang rivalry, politician-gangster nexus, etc
But nothing is emphasised or elaborated to the viewer.
There is a pot shot of "You blink-you miss" Pradeep Sharma-Vijay Salaskar rivalry with a couple of gripping scenes. Mostly we get only tit bits of the happenings, and the story doesn't gel together. Background score makes things more awful with very weak rudimentary music. Production design and costumes were just par.
Bobby Deol acting was surprisingly mature, strong and compassionate but the same cannot be said about the rookie cops who despite showing some promise, weren't given enough screen time, and their scenes are interrupted repeatedly. Cinematography was un-understandably dark, and the viewer has to focus his eyes to see the details in the frame.
Overall "Class of 1983" cannot be compared to Ram Gopal varma's directed and produced gangster genre gems like Sathya, Company, Ab tak chappal, D, etc in any way. At the best it is an average one time watch that too for male audiences.
