The Bollywood remake of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Due to the unparalleled impact Quentin Tarantino enjoyed during the 1990s, countless copycats tried to imitate the American director’s style in order to capitalise on its popularity. Ranging from derivative American thrillers to Asian tributes by directors like Johnnie To (which were praised by Tarantino himself), a new market for ‘Tarantinoisms’ emerged. This effect was also seen in Bollywood, as its interpretation of the crime genre rapidly changed.
With his 1992 feature Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino changed the rules of the game with an unapologetically postmodern version of the standard American heist movie. Deciding to surgically remove the action of the heist from the narrative, the screenplay focused on the absurd beginnings and the violent aftermath instead. Conducting a new kind of investigation into the structures of violence and crime, the movie permanently changed American independent filmmaking.
Sanjay Gupta’s 2002 action flick Kaante not only borrows from Reservoir Dogs but also pays tribute to the film that inspired Tarantino himself – Ringo Lam’s City on Fire. Starring major Bollywood names such as Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt, Kaante tells the story of six Indian men in Los Angeles who decide to rob a bank after being racially profiled by the LAPD despite the absence of any meaningful evidence linking them.
During an interview, Gupta reflected: “The whole world thinks Kaante is Reservoir Dogs. No, it isn’t. There are a few similarities in the second half of the film, but the genesis of Kaante was the Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri & Sons Jewellers robbery case, which was later made into the film Special 26. Till today, that’s unsolved. My idea was: ‘What if they were six boys from Dagdi Chawl, who conducted the most successful heist in the history of India, go back to Dagdi Chawl, which is suddenly surrounded by cops?'”.
While recalling the origin of the project, the director added: “There was a producer from Los Angeles called Raju Patel. He wanted to do a Hindi film and suggested [doing] a film based over there, as he would organise everything. I told Sanju, ‘Ok, so the story could be that all these guys are based out of Los Angeles.’ That’s the time that, more than Reservoir Dogs, I was inspired by The Usual Suspects — a group of strangers who meet in a lock-up.”
Despite Gupta’s insistence that Kaante is markedly different from Tarantino’s film, the 2002 movie’s legacy revolves around its undeniable ties to Reservoir Dog’s extensive legacy. Interestingly, Tarantino himself counted Kaante among his favourite tributes to his own cinema, and the praise meant a lot to Gupta too. In the same interview, he added: “Even Tarantino has appreciated the film and the backstory I had given.”
Watch the trailer below.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.