Shree 420

Small town boy Raju (Kapoor) travels ‘four hundred and twenty miles’ to Bombay to find his fortune. This immensely successful tale of the triumph of Gandhian good over evil proved resonant with audiences in newly independent India (and globally) when many people moved to the city to find work only to realise that the streets of Bombay were not paved with rupees. The large canvas and multiple narratives of the plot tend to swamp us at times. Nevertheless this is superior political cinema with an Indian heart.