Checking out Vaastav

Was checking out Vastav on TV last night and although had seen the movie previously ,was still drawn to some aspects of this hitherto celebrated crime flick of 1999.One thing is clear from watching the movie it is no Goodfellas or departed just a crime drama coming after Satya which has its moments sometimes. Most of the movie follows the same formulaic hindi film scenario of vicious gangleaders, Bad guy with a heart of gold , Gold or silver hearted prostitutes, you decide after seeing the movie. The point is that the movie follows the same formula already seen but admittedly in a nuanced fashion.The movie certainly has its moments, some which were powerful enough to merit as best scenes considering the melodramatic "Hum Dil de chuke Sanam" and some other mediocre films which came out that year. Scenes where Sanjay Dutt explains the path of a local train with his life ,where the elder brother tells Sanjay to not come to his house since it was a locality of decent people and then looking at his wife out of the corner of his eyes. I find these scenes much more powerful than the ones where the mother shoots her son down which though certainly shocking was way over the top even for a Hindi commercial movie.Sanjay Dutt certainly is endearing to watch and gives a Good performance , the rest of the cast is Okayish; while Mahesh Manjrekar certainly showed a lot of talent with this movie it has faded out somewhat since then.