Nayak (2001 Hindi film)

Shivaji Rao (Anil Kapoor) is an ambitious TV reporter, working for "Q TV" along with his friend Topi (Johnny Lever). While on the job, Rao records a conversation in which the Chief Minister Balraj Chauhan (Amrish Puri) takes an indifferent stand during riots triggered by a fight between some college students and bus drivers, so as not to lose his voter base. Due to police inaction, there is loss of life and damage to property. To explain his actions, Chauhan later agrees to a live interview with Shivaji, during which Rao raises these issues and broadcasts the recorded conversation.

In response to Shivaji's allegations about the mismanagement by his government, Chauhan redirects the question by instead talking about how difficult his job is due to bureaucracy. He challenges Shivaji to be the CM for a day and experience those problems himself. Shivaji reluctantly accepts the challenge to prove Chauhan wrong. Educated and vigilant, Shivaji handles issues that affect the populace everyday. He manages appropriate housing and employment for the needy, and he suspends inefficient and corrupt government officials. He is assisted by the secretary, Bansal (Paresh Rawal). As the last act of the day, Rao has Chauhan arrested, as he is the root cause of all the corruption. Later, Chauhan posts bail and leaves jail, then passes an ordinance to nullify all orders passed by Shivaji when he was the CM. Insulted by Shivaji's success as well, Chauhan sends assassins after him although they only destroy his house.

Shivaji falls in love with Manjari (Rani Mukerji), a naive and carefree villager. When he asks her father (Shivaji Satam) her hand in marriage, he refuses on grounds that Shivaji is not employed by the government. As a result, Shivaji begins preparing for the Indian Civil Service Examination. However, Bansal arrives and informs Rao that Shivaji's popularity has skyrocketed and that people want him to become the next CM. He is reluctant at first, but when Chauhan's henchmen vandalise Q TV premises to intimidate him, and the people show their support by thronging to his place in huge numbers, he agrees to run for office.

In the ensuing state elections, he wins by a vast majority. Chauhan's political allies desert him, causing his defeat. Manjari's father, angered by Shivaji's decision, refuses to let his daughter marry him. On becoming the chief minister, Shivaji effects many improvements and quickly becomes an idol in the people's eyes. However his growing popularity is threatened continuously by Chauhan who uses his henchmen to try to kill him or at least tarnish his image as a public hero. But Shivaji promptly answers by digging out all accusations against Chauhan and his allies. This, however, causes a reunion of Chauhan and his allies. After a failed attempt on Shivaji's life by hiring an assassin, a bomb is detonated at his home, killing his parents (Neena Kulkarni and Kitty).

In the final attempt, Chauhan orders Pandurung (Saurabh Shukla) to destroy law and order and cause bomb explosions in various parts of the city. But a priest is able to overhear a few men planning to detonate bombs. He immediately notifies Shivaji's office via the "Complaint Box" department. Pandurung is arrested and under tactical inquiry by Shivaji and his secretary, he discloses the location of the four bombs. A Bomb Squad is able to defuse three bombs, but the fourth explodes before they could reach it. Chauhan, however, uses this success against Shivaji by blaming the young CM for the bomb. Seeing no way out, Shivaji summons Chauhan to the secretariat and creates a situation such that it would seem as if Chauhan was there to shoot Shivaji but failed. Shivaji takes up a gun, but pointing it to his arm, shoots himself, and then hands over the gun to Chauhan. Now getting to know that Shivaji had set a trap, an enraged Chauhan attempts to shoot Shivaji, but his shot misses. The security guards then shoot down Chauhan killing him. While dying, Chauhan recalls the events during the interview and says "It was a good interview" and dies. Shivaji, secretly tells Bansal the truth and says that "finally they have turned me into a politician too" but Bansal believes that Chauhan deserved death saying "he instituted politics for a long time for corruption and evil; you did it only once for good" . Manjari's father also comes to realize that Shivaji is in fact a great man who sees duty before everything else and allows Manjari to marry him.

In the end, the city develops under the governance of Shivaji Rao and his colleagues. The complaint box, where people were supposed to fill in their complaints and information about various threats anonymously, is shown to be empty, signifying that the reasons to be afraid have been taken care of.

The protagonist's character name "Shivaji Rao" was specially named after Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth's real name. This was because the lead role was initially written with Rajinikanth in mind for the original Tamil version, however, his refusal led to Shankar later signing on Arjun and he had retained the character's name in the Hindi version.[6]

Shankar first approached Shah Rukh Khan for the lead role and paid the actor an advance, before he later opted out.[7] Originally the first choice for the role of Manjari was Manisha Koirala who was going to reprise her role from Mudhalvan, but was busy with multi-starrer films like Grahan and Lajja so refused. Later on the role was played by Rani Mukerji after Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, Raveena Tandon and Preity Zinta all had date issues. The inaugural shot of Nayak was done on 15 July 2000 by Rakesh Roshan. Filming began on 18 December in Mumbai.[8]

The soundtrack for the film was composed by A.R.Rahman. He reused all the songs except "Mudhalvane" song, from the original film Mudhalvan. A new track "Saiyyan" was added. The track "Shakalaka Baby" was reused in the musical Bombay Dreams also. The lyrics for the songs were written by veteran poet Anand Bakshi and this was one of his last films before he died in 2002.

The audio rights were bought by T-Series for ₹6 crore and released on 4 July 2001. Comparing with the Tamil version which was a massive success, the album did only an average business.[9] According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 14,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fourteenth highest-selling.[10]

All lyrics are written by Anand Bakshi; all music is composed by A.R.Rahman.

However, Nayak didn't perform well at Box Office. It was declared a "Flop" by Box Office India.[11] In the UK, Nayak grossed £83,496 during its theatrical run.[12]

In September 2013, Anil Kapoor revealed that he was signed to reprise his role in Nayak Returns. He also added that the film would not be a sequel to Nayak, and would have a "completely fresh subject".[13] The film was announced in early 2017.[14] As of March 2019, the film had not been filmed let alone being released due to severe financial problems in production of the movie.

• Nayak: The Real Hero at IMDb
• Nayak at Rotten Tomatoes