Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983)

Two idealistic young photographers set up a studio, stumble on a builder's murder, and are comprehensively defeated by every institution they take it to — the press, the police, and a commission of inquiry. Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani lead, with Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur and Satish Shah; Kundan Shah directed, and the Film and Television Institute graduates who made it had almost no money. Its climax, in which the plot collapses into a stage performance of the Mahabharata and the characters chase each other through it, is the most quoted sequence in Indian comedy. It is widely held to be the finest Hindi satire ever made, and nothing in Indian cinema has been as bleak about corruption while staying funny. This Archive copy is an NFDC collector's edition — the National Film Development Corporation financed the film, so this derives from an official source rather than a broadcast rip. Playback is withheld here because the copy was uploaded with its format details disguised; the entry stays listed.