'You can't make a film without heroines'

Apoorva Lakhiya's last two directorial ventures, Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost and Ek Ajnabee, failed at the box office. But the director seems to have bounced back with his new film, Shootout At Lokhandwala, starring Sanjay Dutt, Vivek Oberoi, Abhishek Bachchan, Tusshar Kapoor, Arbaaz Khan and Dia Mirza.

He talks to Narendran Singh about his take on a real life incident that took place on November 16, 1991.

How tough was it for you to make a film based on a real life incident?

Actually, it's the research that consumes most of your time. Doing a story that made headlines is a big responsibility. You cannot afford to miss the facts. We collected a lot of research material, went to police stations and looked through FIR reports of Maya Dolas and Dilip Bua. We also went through A A Khan's book, Surrender.

Then, there were newspaper cuttings, which Minty Tejpal had covered. We have also used real life footage in the film. Since the original quality of the footage was very bad, we copied the original stuff frame by frame.

We have remained true to the whole episode as far as possible. That said, we have also dramatised some of the characters because this is a film not a documentary. We have made an entertaining product and hope people like it.

In most films, the underworld characters are glorified. What have you done differently?

We have not glorified anyone in the film. My job is not to glorify characters. What we have shown here is based on our research.

However, we have to take certain cinematic liberties. For example, Maya Dolas was not a Christian in real life but in the film, he is one. It was important for us to give each character a distinct style so that people develop an interest in them.

Tusshar Kapoor has always been a good boy in films. How did you convince him to play a baddie?

He is a fantastic actor. I had not met Tusshar before the film's pre-production but when I was going through the character of Bua in the script, I was looking for an actor who had never played such a role before.

Initially, Tusshar had refused the role of Bua, saying that he won't be able to do justice to it. I gave him three days to think over his decision. But he was still hesitant and asked for an audition. I flatly refused and put him on an extensive training programme for 45 days to make him look the part.

He used to train for two hours daily with the fight master. In the process, we became friends. He was terrific and has done full justice to the role.

Why didn't you give Sanjay Dutt a negative role?

It was not needed. The anti-heroes in the film are in the age group of 25 to 28 and A A Khan, who led the shootout, was 45 years at that time. It's cool for someone like Sanju to play this larger than life personality.

Sanju's role was never a question for us; in fact, he was our first choice. After him, every role fell into place.

The female roles must have been incorporated in the film from the commercial perspective. Is this true?

Everyone does this and we were compelled to do it too. Firstly, we were making a Hindi film and while going through the research we saw that Bua had a girlfriend, who worked in a dance bar. So that automatically gave us a female character for the film.

Amrita Singh plays Vivek's mother while Neha Dhupia plays Sanju's wife. Originally, a male reporter covered the incident, which is being played by a female (Dia Mirza). You can't make a film without heroines; you need beauty quotient in films.

There are rumours of differences between you and Sanjay Gupta regarding Dia Mirza's character. How true are they?

You should not believe everything you read. It's all hogwash. My producers recommended Dia and I respect them. She is a good actor with lots of talent. She has done a fantastic job in the film.

Male bonding must be in abundance during the shooting of the film.

Yes, there was lots of male bonding on the sets. In the film, we have a lot of guns and ammunition and the actors played with them like kids. It was fun.

The schedule was divided into two parts and it was only during the climax that both the groups met with each other. The police characters and the anti-heroes had separate schedules. Though it was difficult to shoot such a large ensemble under one roof, I had a great time. I am blessed with a star cast like this.

Since the film is based on a real life incident, do you think it will create any controversy?

I don't think so. But it will definitely prompt a lot of questions. We have taken a real life event and dramatised it.

The film is based on an incident that took place 16 years back. Do you think it will still hold interest among the masses?

I think outside Mumbai, the USP is the star cast. But again, people are interested in encounter killings. The shootout at Lokhandwala generated a lot of curiosity. It would be interesting for people to see what we have done with such a huge star cast. We have justified each character and it's an entertaining film at the same time.

Do you think the film will do well?

I have justified all the characters to the optimum. I am not scared about any pressures or questions it might generate. I am only scared about it's fate. A lots of people have put their faith in me and that makes me nervous.