Waqt: The Race Against Time

Story:

Waqt: The Race Against Time or simply known as Waqt is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film directed and produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. Based on a Gujarati play by Aatish Kapadia, the film stars an ensemble cast of Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Shefali Shetty Shah, Rajpal Yadav and Boman Irani. It follows the journey of Ishwar Chandra Thakur (Bachchan), an old rich businessman who unexpectedly turns very strict to his spoiled son Aditya Thakur (Kumar) to teach him life lessons before it is too late.

PLOT

Ishwarchand Thakur and Sumitra Thakur are a married couple who run a toy factory together. They have a son named Aditya Thakur, who is spoiled and has no interest in responsibility or his direction in life except wanting to become an actor. The situation deteriorates when Aditya elopes with his girlfriend Pooja, the daughter of Ishwar’s rival Nattu.

When Pooja becomes pregnant, Ishwar and Sumitra decide to force Aditya to understand his responsibilities in caring for his wife and child. They throw Aditya and Pooja out of their house, and the couple move into in a room in the garden at the back of the house. Ishwar makes it very difficult for Aditya to live on his own by removing the fuse for the fan, and not allowing him to take food from home. Ishwar loathes that Aditya is a selfish person and fears his soon-to-be born child would be an orphan with someone like him as his father. Aditya then starts to change and works hard to become a responsive father and husband by taking a job as a risky stuntman for films. However, Aditya also begins to hate his father; they do not speak to each other for a long time, during which Aditya becomes aware of his role as a father.

Ishwar, who wants to ensure his son is secure and responsible, is suffering from lung cancer. Ishwar and Sumitra entrust Nattu and his wife Ashalata to keep an eye on Aditya but Ishwar intends to separate him from Pooja due to her pregnancy, which Nattu accidentally blurts out to the young couple. Aditya becomes a responsible man and finds out about his father’s illness when he attends Aditya’s performance on stage. Aditya steps onto the stage and asks the audience to pray for his father to stay alive until his son’s birth. Ishwar survives until the birth; the child is a boy, whom Ishwar names after himself, and he dies. Aditya welcomes children into his father’s toy factory and in the presence of his family, including his toddler Ishwar, plays with a lonely, disabled boy. The spirit of Ishwar touches the flowers in Sumitra’s hair, reminding her of earlier times.