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Unlike the Spaghetti Western, which raised the archetype of the rootless, self-sufficient loner to the level of fetish object, the Indian take on the genre has a far more sociable agenda. For, while the Italian oaters typically sought to depict a frontier that was as barren of decency and brotherly human feeling as it was of modern comforts, the Curry Western presents the raw land and the community that grows around its cultivation as a source of virtue, redemption and spiritual sustenance. This is not too surprising since, while the Spaghetti Western was a retooling of the Western geared toward the more cynical sensibilities of a late sixties/early seventies urban audience, Bollywood at the time of Khotte Sikkay still depended to a great extent on India's vast rural population for its viewership. To illustrate the difference, compare a film like Sholay or Khotte Sikkay to, say, Django, Kill!, one of a number of Spaghetti Westerns that depicts a community driven to depravity by its isolation from civilization, no doubt the manifestation of an urbanite's worst nightmare.
Despite being imbued with such communal spirit, however, Khotte Sikkay is far from cuddly in its presentation, and true to it's inclusion of the perpetually two-fisted Feroz Khan in its lead role, falls squarely on the more exploitative end of 1970s Bollywood action cinema. In fact, the film has more rough edges even than the decidedly pulpy Kaala Sona. This is exemplified by the gritty, obviously on-the-fly (notice the watching crowds on the periphery) location shot scenes in the streets and back alleys of the city that make up the first part of the film. As in Sholay and Kaala Sona, Khotte Sikkay's heroes are modern day urban ne'er-do-wells, making a hardscrabble living by whatever illicit means is at hand, who find themselves changed by their experience of protecting a tight-knit rural community from a malevolent outside force.
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Eventually joining this magnificent six is Feroz Khan, playing a role that's basically an amalgamation of the Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef characters in For a Few Dollars More: a black-clad Man With No Name looking to settle a score with Jhanga for a murder committed many years before (in Dollars the victim was Van Cleef's sister; Here it's Khan's father). The very significant musical pocket watch from Dollars also makes an appearance in this context, as does the climactic duel in which it plays such an integral part. Original to Khan's character, however, is the self-appointed guardian angel role he takes in relation to the nautch girl Rani (Rehana Sultan), who was orphaned as a result of Jhanga's murderousness. Of course, since the Sergio Leone Dollar films weren't too big on either romance or female characters -- both things that no Bollywood masala could stay afloat without -- it's expected that Khotte Sikkay would make corrections in this regard.
Though the heroes' spiritual regeneration through honest labor and communal participation is the central arc of Khotte Sikkay, the beneficial exchange of values doesn't just go in one direction. The relatively progressive values of the city boys are a definite boon to the widowed Madhu (Madhu Chanda), who, in keeping with some especially conservative aspects of Hindu tradition, is cruelly ostracized by the village community until Jaggu and his friends plead on her behalf. Of course, the fact that Jaggu has fallen in love with Madhu probably has more to do with this than any nascent feminist leanings on the guys' parts, since they don't exhibit any such liberal attitudes when it comes to Rani's de facto second class status. Dezongpa's Danny, in particular, is all for keeping things status quo as far as the ladies are concerned, a stance exemplified in a cringe inducing "he hit me and it felt like a kiss" exchange between him and his girlfriend Reeta (Alka) that takes place early in the film.
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The version of Khotte Sikkay that I saw was abnormally compact for a Bollywood film of it's era, clocking in at just over two hours. The score by R.D. Burman was equally abbreviated, consisting of only two songs -- though one of them was repeated three times over the course of the movie. Whether this was an edited version or not, the brevity served the film well; like the other Feroz Khan actioners I've seen, it's the type of movie that's best served up fast and funky, and would risk overstaying its welcome otherwise. While I didn't enjoy it quite as much as its follow-up Kaala Sona -- mainly because that later film contained some phantasmagorical elements that gave it an added WTF appeal -- I would highly recommend Khotte Sikkay as an entertaining example of a fascinating Bollywood sub-genre.