General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Mast (मस्त) (1999 film)

Mast (मस्त) is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic film directed and produced by Ram Gopal Varma, in which a college student obsessed with a film actress leaves home to meet her and ends up rescuing her from her controlling relatives.¹^•² It marked the debut of Aftab Shivdasani as a lead actor, paired opposite Urmila Matondkar.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	15 October 1999 (India)³
Director and producer	Ram Gopal Varma, under Varma Corporation Ltd. / Ram Gopal Varma Productions¹^•⁴
Lead cast	Aftab Shivdasani as Krishnakant "Kittu" Mathur; Urmila Matondkar as Mallika⁵
Music	Sandeep Chowta; lyrics by Nitin Raikwar⁴
India box office	₹52.7 million (₹5.27 crore) net against a ₹45 million (₹4.5 crore) budget; Box Office India lists the film as a flop⁴
US box office	$158,928, released October 15, 1999 in 25 theaters by Eros Entertainment⁶
Awards for Shivdasani	Zee Cine Award for Best Male Debut; Star Screen Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male¹
IMDb rating	5.4/10 from about 1,100 votes⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Krishnakant "Kittu" Mathur (Aftab Shivdasani) is a college student in Pune whose life revolves around film star Mallika (Urmila Matondkar) to the point that he fails his final exams.² He works in a restaurant located opposite Mallika's bungalow, talks to her posters on his bedroom wall, and daydreams about dancing with her and rescuing her from villains.⁸^•⁹ After a conflict with his father (Dalip Tahil), he leaves home for Mumbai and takes shelter in the hotel of Usman Bhai (Neeraj Vora) near her house, where he sees her real life behind the camera.²

Kittu meets Mallika face to face at Mehboob Studios and discovers that her life is controlled by her uncle Toluram (Govind Namdeo), her aunt, and her cousin.⁸^•¹⁰ After witnessing her uncle beating her, he breaks into her house, assaults the uncle, and abducts her, prompting a media furor and police involvement.¹⁰ He hides her at his family home in Pune, and the story moves toward a resolution in which reality and fantasy come together after misunderstandings and emotional scenes.²

Production and music

The film was written by Vinod Ranganathan and Ramesh Khatkar, with story, screenplay, and dialogue credited to both; Piyush Shah was the cinematographer, Chandan Arora and Ashok Honda the editors, and Farah Khan the choreographer.¹¹^•¹² The censor certificate, dated 8 October 1999, was rated U.¹³

Ram Gopal Varma said in interviews that he based the film on his own story of a crush, naming the actress Sridevi as the object of his infatuation in his younger days.¹⁴^•¹⁵

Sandeep Chowta composed the music, with lyrics by Nitin Raikwar. The soundtrack album, released July 24, 1999 on Ishtar Music, contains 9 songs in 43 minutes.¹⁶ Playback singers included Asha Bhosle, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sadhana Sargam, Chowta himself, and Raikwar.¹³ Songs listed on IMDb include "Ruki Ruki" (Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam), "Aasman Ne" (Sonu Nigam), "Hey Rama Krishna" (Asha Bhosle), and "Main Mast" (Sunidhi Chauhan).¹⁷ A contemporary review singled out "Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi" as the track that lingers.¹⁸

Box office

In India, Mast earned ₹5.4 million (₹0.54 crore) on its opening day, ₹27.2 million (₹2.72 crore) in its first week, and ₹52.7 million (₹5.27 crore) net (₹73.2 million (₹7.32 crore) gross) over its run, with ₹15.1 million (₹1.51 crore) gross overseas, for worldwide gross collections of ₹88.3 million (₹8.83 crore).³ Box Office India records a budget of ₹45 million (₹4.5 crore), 150 screens, and a verdict of Flop, with footfalls of 3,553,000.⁴ Google Play's description, by contrast, states that upon release the film was a hit at the box office.¹^•⁴

In the United States, the film opened on October 15, 1999 in 25 theaters through Eros Entertainment, grossing $83,882 in its opening weekend and $158,928 in total, a 27 percent second-weekend decline.⁶ Box Office India records total US and Canada gross of $220,000.⁴

Reception and awards

The film holds an IMDb rating of 5.4/10 from about 1,100 votes.⁷ On Rotten Tomatoes it has no critic reviews on the Tomatometer and an audience score of 44 percent from more than 250 ratings.¹⁹ A retrospective review described the film as "feverishly earnest, intermittently charming," praising Matondkar's performance and Piyush Shah's dreamlike cinematography while noting tonal shifts.¹⁸

Shivdasani's debut performance earned him the Zee Cine Award for Best Male Debut and the Star Screen Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male.¹ TV Guide's awards listing records a 2000 Popular Award for Best Debut – Male and a 2000 Screen Award for Most Promising Debut Actor as wins, plus a Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.¹⁰

Availability

Mast is not currently available on streaming services in India; it was last available on Zee5 from December 2018 to April 2020.⁷

Reported runtimes differ across databases: 145 minutes (Box Office India), 153 minutes (The Numbers, MovieMeter), 2 hours 30 minutes (JustWatch, TMDb), 2 hours 33 minutes (Rotten Tomatoes), and 165 minutes (Google Play).⁴^•⁶^•⁷^•¹⁹^•¹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026