Ghatak: Lethal

Ghatak is a 1996 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. The film stars Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Seshadri, Danny Denzongpa, and Amrish Puri.

The film was released on 15 November 1996, and was a blockbuster, grossing ₹32.7 crore at the box-office to become the highest-grossing Hindi film of the year. It won three awards at the 42nd Filmfare Awards: Best Supporting Actor (Puri), Best Screenplay (Santoshi), and Best Editing (Mayekar). It also received three nominations: Best Director (Santoshi), Best Actor (Deol), and Best Villain (Denzongpa). The film was remade in Telugu as Aapthudu (2004), starring Rajasekhar and Anjala Zaveri.

Kashi Nath is a kind-hearted wrestler and the dutiful adopted son of Shambhu Nath, living in Banaras. Shambhu Nath, who was a freedom fighter awarded with the Tambra Patra, is an honourable and respectable man in town. Kashi, along with Shambhu, comes to Mumbai for medical treatment for Shambhu and stays with his elder brother, Shiv Nath. Kashi meets Gauri in Mumbai and starts liking her. He learns that the locality is being terrorized by the tyrannical gangster, Katya, along with his six brothers. Before Kashi's arrival, a resident named Sachdev tried to initiate a revolt against Katya, but got ruthlessly killed by him, thereby making Malti, Sachdev's widow, go mad. Katya and his brothers become enemies with Kashi when he beats up their goons when they were roughing up Malti.

Shambhu is later diagnosed with terminal throat cancer and only has a few days to live. When Kashi refuses to join Katya's gang, Katya becomes furious and humiliates Shambhu before the entire locality, by making him bark like a dog. After a series of dramatic events, Shiv is run over to death by Jeena, one of Katya's brothers. In retaliation, Kashi then kills Antya, another one of Katya's brothers, and gets arrested. Meanwhile, Shambhu passes away. When Kashi tries to disperse his father's ashes at the Ghat with the police, the police van gets attacked by Katya's brothers and goons. Kashi kills all of them, including Katya's three brothers, and reaches Katya's home. There he kills Jeena, thereby causing only two brothers to survive, including Katya; however, Kashi is captured in the process.

As Katya had Shambhu bark like a dog, he tries to make Kashi behave like an ox in front of the locality, to re-establish his supremacy. Gauri however stands up, arousing the audience to attack as well. Kashi frees himself from the shackles and beats Katya to death. Katya's entire gang is attacked by the residents of the locality. Katya's sixth and the last remaining brother, Bhiku, is killed by the mob. For retribution, Kashi makes Katya bark like a dog just like Shambhu. He then kills him in front of the residents, but loses control over himself as he keeps beating Katya's corpse. His nephew then brings him Shambhu's ashes from crematory rites which brings him back to senses. The ending is a bittersweet one, where Kashi loses every one he loved, but the locality has its freedom at last.

Kamal Haasan was originally signed to play the lead role and an advertisement was commissioned to appear in a Screen magazine noting "Welcome back to the Hindi screen", pointing at the actor's return to Hindi films after 1985's Dekha Pyaar Tumhara. However, due to no producer willing to back the actor in the film, Rajkumar Santoshi changed the star cast.

The background score of the film was composed by Vanraj Bhatia. The music for all but one song was composed by R. D. Burman. Only one song "Koi Jaye To Le Aaye" was composed by Anu Malik. The lyrics were penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri and Rahat Indori. The song "Koi Jaye To Le Aaye" was remade as "Dil Dil Dil" in the 2025 Hindi feature film Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat.

This film was re-released on 21 March 2025, after 28 years at the Red Lorry Film Festival.