100 Days (1991 film)

100 Days
Poster
Directed byPartho Ghosh
Written byBhushan Banmali (dialogue)
Devjyoti Roy (screenplay)
Based onNooravathu Naal by Manivannan
Produced byJay Mehta
StarringJackie Shroff
Madhuri Dixit
Moon Moon Sen
Javed Jaffrey
CinematographyArvind Laad
Edited byR. Rajendran
Music byRaamlaxman
Production
company
Prathima Films
Distributed byJayvijay Enterprises
Release date
  • 31 May 1991 (1991-05-31)
Running time
157 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budget0.95 crore (equivalent to 8.2 crore or US$980,000 in 2023)
Box office8.9 crore (equivalent to 77 crore or US$9.2 million in 2023)

100 Days is a 1991 Indian Hindi-language psychological thriller film, starring Jackie Shroff, Madhuri Dixit, Moon Moon Sen and Javed Jaffrey. The film's plot is a mystery that follows the events in the life of a woman with extrasensory perception.[1] It was a remake of the 1984 Tamil film Nooravathu Naal,[2] which itself was an unofficial adaptation of the 1977 Italian giallo film Sette note in nero (English Title: The Psychic or Seven Notes in Black) and the American film Eyes of Laura Mars.[3]

Plot

The film opens with a young woman, Devi (Madhuri Dixit), who gets sudden visions (usually accompanied with a mild panic attack) of incidents and accidents that are yet to happen.[4] Devi has a vision of her sister Rama (Moon Moon Sen) being murdered. Her college friends Sudha Mathur (Sabeeha) and Sunil (Javed Jaffrey) try to help her sort through her visions, but to little avail. Devi is relieved after she talks to her sister and finds that she is alive. However, just some time later, Rama is murdered in the same way as Devi had sensed. The murderer hides Rama's body in her mansion's wall. Rama is reported missing. Devi firmly believes Rama is dead. Five years later, Devi moves to her uncle (Ajit Vachani)'s home, where she eventually meets and is courted by millionaire businessman Ram Kumar (Jackie Shroff). Sunil, who was secretly in love with Devi, is deeply disappointed. Devi and Ram marry and enter his family mansion, which he has regained after a legal battle. Little known to anybody, this is the same mansion where Rama was buried. When Devi starts having the visions again, Rama's skeleton is not the only thing that will come tumbling out.

Devi sees a wall in the mansion and tears it down, only to find a skeleton with necklace tumbling out of it. Devi knows whose skeleton it is: as Rama had a necklace similar to Devi's. Also, the skeleton is roughly same height as that of Rama. The Inspector (Shivaji Satam) quickly points out that since the mansion was closed when Rama disappeared, anyone could have hidden a dead body in there and nobody would know the truth. However, he doubts that the dead woman is Rama: several such necklaces are available for purchase.

Devi gets premonition of another woman getting murdered. She also pinpoints two details: a magazine named Priya with a horse on its cover and a video cassette labelled 100 Days. Sunil and Devi visit the weekly magazine office. The editor (Shashi Kiran) politely informs them that the next six months' covers do not feature any equestrian theme whatsoever. The video cassette clue, too, is a dead end: no video store in Bombay carries any such title as '100 days'. Devi begins delving into Rama's life. She learns that Rama was a research scholar and was working on a thesis about ancient sculptures and temples in India. A quick investigation by Devi during a visit to the Bombay Museum reveals that many artifacts listed by Rama either had mysteriously disappeared, got stolen or were replaced by fakes. She also learns that two people working in the museum, Security Officer Jagmohan (Jai Kalgutkar) and Record Keeper Parvati (Neelam Mehra), were fired on suspicion. Parvati is revealed to be the victim in Devi's recent visions.

Jagmohan is a hot-headed man. Parvati knows Rama's killer and had videotaped the murder. She tries to blackmail the murderer, but the murderer tries to kill her. She sneaks into a video library, sticks a label '100 days' on the cassette and tries to escape. But Jagmohan succeeds in killing her, just as Devi had seen. Later, due to last minute developments, the weekly magazine 'Priya' prints an issue with a horse on its cover. Devi soon realizes that Parvati has been murdered. She goes to the video library and retrieves the video cassette. Jagmohan tries to kill her, but her luck prevails and she escapes. She comes back into the mansion, where she gets a vision of herself in an injured state and a broken mirror in the mansion. She tells Ram about the developments and sits with him to watch the video cassette. Ram has no idea about the cassette's contents.

However, as the video cassette is being played, Devi gets another shock: she sees her sister Rama confronting Ram. Based on the evidence in the video cassette, it seems that Ram is the murderer. Devi tells him that she is pregnant with his child. Ram offers to explain about Rama. Ram says that he was from an affluent family, but his father lost all his wealth to gambling and eventually died. When Ram sought financial help from his relatives, they spurned his requests, leaving him helplessly alone. Consequently, he took to illegal ways of earning money. He ran into Jagmohan and Parvati. Later, the trio became partners and started smuggling the artifacts from museums and replaced them with fakes. Rama suspected it and decided to expose them. That night, Ram went to talk to Rama. But Jagmohan, who was also there, lost his temper and shot her dead. Parvati was secretly taping the incident, but due to her camera's angle, it looked as if Ram was the killer. Ram offers to surrender to police and phones them. He confesses his crime and asks them to come to his place.

No sooner has he stopped talking, when Jagmohan stabs him in his back. Ram loses consciousness, while Devi fights with Jagmohan. In this unequal fight, Devi is overpowered and rendered unconscious after being hit on her forehead by a conch hurled at her by Jagmohan. Then, Jagmohan buries her alive in the same wall where he had buried Rama. Just as he is about to escape, he sees Sunil coming in. Jagmohan hides while Sunil is surprised to see the mansion unlocked with nobody in it. Just then, Devi's wrist watch alarm chimes. Sunil is surprised to hear the sound coming from behind the wall and puts two and two together. He starts removing the bricks of freshly constructed wall, when Jagmohan suddenly attacks him. However, Sunil puts up a good fight and is able to defeat him. Ram wakes up too and goes towards the wall to remove the bricks and manages to bring the unconscious Devi from the wall. Sunil soon overpowers Jagmohan and dumps him into the swimming pool.

The police arrive at the scene. Sunil is surprised to see Ram being arrested as well. Devi looks wearily as the police van leaves with Jagmohan and Ram in custody.

Cast

Soundtrack

Song Singer
"Sun Beliya Shukriya Meharbani" Lata Mangeshkar, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam
"Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun Dilruba" Lata Mangeshkar, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam
"Tana Dere Na Tana Na De Sundari" Lata Mangeshkar, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam
"Pyar Tera Pyar" Lata Mangeshkar
"Le Le Dil, De De Dil" Lata Mangeshkar, Amit Kumar
"Gabbar Singh Yeh" Amit Kumar, Alka Yagnik

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ^ "100 Days review, story, songs, photos, videos". www.gomolo.com. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  2. ^ "100 days". The Indian Express. 7 June 1991. p. 7. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
  3. ^ "Here's Why Jackie Shroff Starrer 100 days Still Makes for an Interesting Thriller Watch!". 4 December 2020.
  4. ^ mouthshut. "Madhuri Dixit Having Extra-Sensory Perception".