Awam (film)

Awam
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Directed by	B. R. Chopra
Produced by	B. R. Chopra
Starring	Rajesh Khanna Raj Babbar Ashok Kumar Shafi Inamdar Smita Patil Nana Patekar Poonam Dhillon Iftekhar
Music by	Ravi
Release date	1987 (1987)
Running time	160 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Awam is a Hindi film released in 1987 with Rajesh Khanna in the lead role and supported by Shafi Inamdar, Ashok Kumar, Raj Babbar, Nana Patekar, Smita Patil and Poonam Dhillon. In this film, the playback singing for Rajesh Khanna was done by Mahendra Kapoor.

Indian Army Captain Amar Kumar lives with his father, Ram, and mother, Saraswati. Ram has been associated with top freedom fighters during India's struggle for independence from the British. Almost all of these freedom fighters had taken advantage of their involvement and have taken up important positions in India's administration, and these include Jagrathan, and Mohanlal. While others like Vaisakh Ansari and Ram have chosen not to. Amar goes to Delhi and meets Mohanlal, who offers him a position of personal secretary with Jagrathan. Then a chain of events lead to the death of Jagrathan's pilot son, Surender, resulting in Jagrathan threatening to expose the powers that-be unless they come clean and admit their involvement. Then Jagrathan is killed in a vehicle accident. Before dying he asks Dr. Shabnam to hand-over a key to Amar. Before Shabnam could do so, she is attacked by two unknown men, and wounded. Together with Amar and Rafiq Sayed Jaffrey, they locate the key - but do not know where to locate the lock. Then Shabnam is attacked again, but Amar rescues her. Amar's world is turned upside down when he is accused of treason, court-martial-ed, and dishonorably discharged from the army. Disillusioned by this, he decides to join the very forces that are involved in treason. And when he does he finds out that he is not amongst strangers at all.

The film did not meet expectations of the director who expected it to be a blockbuster. Instead it became platinum jubilee hit. The National Film Development Corporation of India noted that "Veteran producer-director BR Chopra could not capture the box office with 'Awam' the way he wanted and film was supposed to have been a slick political thriller of current events." It received only two stars in the Bollywood guide Collections.