Shootout at Wadala is a 2013 Indian action-crime film written and directed by Sanjay Gupta. The film stars Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Tusshar Kapoor, Manoj Bajpayee, Kangana Ranaut and Sonu Sood. It is a prequel to the 2007 film Shootout at Lokhandwala. In the film, Manya, a diligent student, lands in prison for killing a gangster who attacked his brother, Bhargav, who eventually dies. Soon, Manya escapes jail and forms his own gang to seek revenge.
Based on the book ' by Hussain Zaidi, the film dramatises the encounter by Bombay police in which gangster Manya Surve was shot dead. It took place at the junction adjacent to Dr. Ambedkar College, Wadala, Bombay on 11 January 1982.
Shootout at Wadala was released on 1 May 2013 and received mixed reviews from critics, It grossed over against a budget of .
In a police van, Afaaque Baaghran listens to the story narrated by a gangster, Manya Surve, who is gravely injured by bullets. Manya is a decent student at Kirti College, Dadar. He is in love with Vidya Joshi and takes her to his mother to discuss their marriage.
Manya has an older brother named Bhargav Surve, who is a mawali (rowdy). Bhargav is in conflict with an underworld don named Bhatkar and is currently on the run. Soon enough, Bhargav is attacked and beaten up by Bhatkar's goons. Manya steps in to save him. While Manya grabs one of the goons, Bhargav stabs the goon, who dies on the spot. On the day of Manya's exam results, before he can learn his grades, Manya and his brother are arrested. Manya is publicly humiliated in the college by Inspector Ambolkar and ends up in Yerwada Central Jail. In prison, a convict named Munir saves Manya from being attacked by a goon named Potya during lunch time. During this assault, Bhargav is killed.
Munir befriends Manya and another convict named Veera. Veera trains Manya to become stronger. After Manya is eventually challenged by Potya. Potya attacks him to fire gets enraged from behind and beats Manya up, to which Manya responds by stabbing Potya to death. Later on, both Manya and Munir escape from prison while they are working on a railway track and try to join hands with two brothers who rule Mumbai's deals.
The elder brother, Zubair Imtiaz Haksar, is cool and is impressed by Manya. However, the younger brother, Dilawar, disapproves of Manya and dislikes him. After this, Manya forms his own gang, which consists of him, Munir, Veera, and Gyancho, a sharpshooter brought by Munir. Soon enough, Manya finishes off Bhatkar (the gangster who had him and his brother arrested). Jamal, Bhatkar's bodyguard, also joins them. Next, Manya brings Ambolkar to his knees by beating him brutally in public for his earlier humiliation. The story next shows the death of Sadiq, an unscrupulous news reporter, by the Mastan gang. This leads to a fight between the Haskar brothers and the Mastan gang. Meanwhile, Manya crosses paths with Vidya, and after learning of her separation from her marriage, they resume their relationship, eventually consummating it the same day. However, she ends it after finding out that he escaped from prison.
A truce is called by Haji Maqsood, which is short lived as the Mastan gang asks Manya to finish off Zubair. After killing Zubair, Manya goes to Vidya's place for refuge, where he violently has sex with Vidya, and later Dilawar kills Gyancho with the help of Jamal. He is about to stage an accident to kill Munir when Manya saves him. Later, Afaaque is asked to kill Manya by Dilawar.
Even after his refusal so many times, and also shown by Dilawar that one day he will be killed, Afaaque told the whole story and degrades the Police for not fully granting access to the encounters and killing the criminals. This influences the Commissioner into granting two choices to Afaaque, to directly encounter and kill Manya or stage an encounter and kill Dilaawar, but they opt for an easy option to encounter Manya, so, Afaaque vows to kill angry Manya.
Afaaque manipulates Vidya to kidnaps reveal Manya's, whereabouts are enraged that he can save Manya, if he confesses his involvement in all the past crimes. Vidya does as told by Afaaque, but the police do an encounter on border. Manya, according to their pre-set plan and thus, misleading Vidya.
In the final scene, when the ambulance arrives, Manya succumbs to the gunshot wounds which gives immense shock to Vidya and she blankly stares at Afaaque's face and Afaaque tells the accompanying constable that Manya has died.
Special appearances
Director Sanjay Gupta knew the consequences of using Dawood Ibrahim's real name while shooting the film, but he carried on with Sonu Sood being addressed as "Dilawar Imtiaz" in the film. On 27 January 2013, Balaji Motion Pictures uploaded a new version of the theatrical trailer, and trimmed nearly every dialogue from the film off. The character of Dawood Ibrahim is only seen for three seconds in the new trailer, to avoid any problems. Also, the character names have been changed as well, except for Abraham's character, whose name remains the same in the film.
The music of Shootout at Wadala is composed by Anu Malik, Anand Raaj Anand, Meet Bros Anjjan and Mustafa Zahid. Anu Malik was asked to compose for three songs for this film which were chartbusters.
The film received a mixed reception from critics.
Shootout at Wadala had an opening of around 65% occupancy and went on to collect on first day. The two-week domestic distributor share is 255.0 million approx. The final total came out to be .
Shootout at Wadala collected $900,000 over its first weekend. Its final overseas collection was US$1.625 million.
Shootout at Wadala was made with a budget of of production costs. The prints and marketing budget was .
Director Sanjay Gupta has stated his plans to make the third installment to the franchise, Shootout at Byculla based on the JJ Hospital shootout in 1992 by Dawood Ibrahim's D Company against the Arun Gawli gang for the latter's killing of Ibrahim's brother-in-law Ismail Parkar (the husband of Haseena Parkar). He has also said that he will restart his movie Alibaug, starring Sunny Deol, Govinda Ahuja, Emraan Hashmi and turn it into the third sequel of the Shootout film series. Also, actors Abhishek Bachchan, Shabir Ahluwalia and John Abraham have been rumoured to star alongside each other. Abraham will portray a real encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar. The project is currently untitled, but it has been reported to be an "epic revenge saga".