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Angaaray (अंगारे)

Angaaray (अंगारे) is a 1998 Hindi-language action crime drama directed by Mahesh Bhatt, produced by Madhu Ramesh Behl under the Rose Movies Combines banner, and starring Akshay Kumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni, Pooja Bhatt, Sonali Bendre, Paresh Rawal, and Gulshan Grover.¹^•² It was released in India on 24 July 1998 and was a box-office failure.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Release	24 July 1998, India; Hindi language³
Director / producer	Mahesh Bhatt; Madhu Ramesh Behl, Rose Movies Combines¹
Writers	Robin Bhatt, Akash Khurana, and Javed Siddiqui²
Music	Aadesh Shrivastava and Anu Malik; lyrics by Javed Akhtar⁴
Censor certificate	UA, certificate number CIL/3/33/98-MUM, dated 13 July 1998¹
Box office	Flop; Box Office India records a nett gross of ₹28,300,000 against a budget of ₹35,000,000⁴
Runtime	Reported as 141 min (IMDb), 137 min (Box Office India), and 135 min (Cinemaazi)²^•⁴^•¹

Spoilers

Plot

The film is set in Mumbai at a time when extortion is a daily occurrence. The city summons Inspector Amar (Akshay Kumar) to dig into the underworld's core and wipe out its criminal elements.¹ According to the Indian Film History synopsis, Amar had earlier been removed from police duty for attacking a man with a knife, and the Mumbai police commissioner assigns him to locate the killer of the businessman Khanna.³

Amar is shocked to learn that the man he is looking for is his childhood friend Raja (Nagarjuna), and that his other friends Jaggu (Paresh Rawal) and Surya (Irfan Kamal) have joined the gang of the mafia don Lala Roshan (Gulshan Grover). Amar had been separated from these friends in childhood because of a crime accidentally committed by him; he received a chance to reform and took it, and now tries to show his friends the right path.¹^•³ Aiding him are Pooja (Pooja Bhatt), his childhood sweetheart and Surya's sister, and Roma (Sonali Bendre), a young prostitute in love with Raja.¹

To prove his worth, Amar pretends to shoot a police inspector at the gang's behest, wins the gang's confidence, and eventually kills Lala Roshan. Raja and Jaggu are jailed, but Surya is killed.³ The official press booklet summarized by Cinemaazi frames the story as how Amar manages to reform his friends and book Lala, the man behind the scenes.¹

Cast and crew

The credited cast includes Akshay Kumar as Inspector Amar, Nagarjuna Akkineni as Raja, Pooja Bhatt as Pooja, Sonali Bendre as Roma, Paresh Rawal as Jaggu, Irfan Kamal as Surya, and Gulshan Grover as the don Lala, with supporting roles for Mohan Kapoor, Razzak Khan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Anant Jog, Naresh Suri, Gavin Packard, Rajesh Puri, and Dina Pathak, among others.³^•² Kunal Kemmu appears as the young Amar.²

Behind the camera, the story, screenplay, and dialogues are credited to Robin Bhatt and Javed Siddiqui, with Akash Khurana also credited as a writer on IMDb and in the Tuli Research Centre's record of the film's song-synopsis booklet.¹^•²^•⁵ Sameer Arya handled cinematography, Sanjay Sankla the editing, and Akbar Bakshi was the action director; Farah Khan and Raju Khan choreographed the songs.¹ Shooting took place at Filmistan, Filmalaya, Mehboob Studios, and Crown Studio.¹

Music

The songs were composed by Aadesh Shrivastava and Anu Malik, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar, and were released on T-Series.⁴^•¹ Singers on the soundtrack included Udit Narayan, Amit Kumar, Alka Yagnik, Sunita Rao, and Aadesh Shrivastava.¹ Indian Film History lists six songs, including "Tanha Tanha Dil Dhadke" and "Yaade Kitni Yaade Dil Me Jagi Hai", the latter performed by Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik.³^•² The contemporary Film Information review called the music functional, describing "Aan de aan de" and "Tanha tanha" as fairly good but the other songs as dull.⁶

Reception and box office

The trade paper Film Information, in its issue dated 25 July 1998, judged Akshay Kumar's performance as the police inspector favorably and noted his stunts in the initial reels, but found Mahesh Bhatt's direction routine, the film slow in its pre-interval portion, and the character of the don unnecessarily mysterious. It concluded that Angaaray was an action film for 'B' and 'C' class centers only.⁶ The film opened very good at the Bombay box office, released on 24 July 1998 at Minerva and 18 other cinemas of the city.⁶

The film was a commercial failure. Box Office India classifies it as a flop, reporting 120 screens, a first day of ₹32,00,000, a first week of ₹1,58,00,000, a total nett gross of ₹28,300,000 against a budget of ₹3,50,00,000, an India gross of ₹4,82,00,000, a worldwide gross of ₹5,01,12,500, and about 2,525,000 footfalls.⁴ Sacnilk, which compiles data from various sources, gives slightly different figures: an India net of ₹28.6 million (₹2.86 crore), an India gross of ₹38.3 million (₹3.83 crore), overseas earnings of ₹12.7 million (₹1.27 crore), a worldwide total of ₹51 million (₹5.10 crore), a budget of ₹31 million (₹3.10 crore), and the same flop verdict.⁷ The Hindi film portal FilmiBeat also records the film as a box-office failure and rates it 2.5 out of 5 from users.⁸ On IMDb the film holds a rating of 5.1/10 from 968 users.²

Later availability

The film is available for streaming on Zee5, which lists it with a duration of 2 hours 2 minutes and genres of action, crime, and thriller.⁹ A song-synopsis booklet for the film, crediting producer Madhu Ramesh Behl and banner Rose International, is held in the Tuli Research Centre for India Studies collection.⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 1990s › Action and thriller films › Released 1996 to 1999

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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