- Spanning the 1970s and 1980s, this is the sensational true story of Arun Gawli, who grew up in Mumbai's impoverished Dagdi Chawl, to become a dreaded don, politician, and rival of India's most powerful crime boss, Dawood Ibrahim.
- In 1982, when Mumbai mills started shutting down, many unemployed young men took to the world of crime, one of them being Arun Gawli. Gawli started gambling in Matka dens on the insistence of his friends Rama Naik and Babu Reshim but to earn quick money the gang started killing people for extortion where he finds him in the books of a Don Maqsood Bhai. After Babu Reshim's death, Rama Naik takes over the gang and runs with Gawli who's fondly called Daddy, and develops a rivalry with Maqsood. Gawli marries his sweetheart Zubeida, who asks him to leave the world of crime, but Gawli takes over the gang after Rama Naik gets killed by a rival gang.—alex.mjacko@gmail.com
- In the 1960s and late 1970s, when Mumbai's textile mills were shutting down one after the other, many unemployed youth including Arun Gulab Gawli (Arjun Rampal) resort to Matka-gambling on the insistence of his friends, Rama Naik (Rajesh Shringarpure) and Babu Reshim (Anand Ingale), to earn some quick buck and form their own gang. In 1979, Rama steals money from gambling den owner Parsiya, and Parsiya kills Uma, Rama's brother. Rama asks for Arun's help for the counter attack, which goes wrong and Arun commits his first murder to escape. He is later arrested, but released as no-one would testify against him.
However soon, Gawli finds himself getting trapped in a vortex of crime when he is taken under the wings of Maqsood Bhai (Farhan Akhtar loosely modeled on Dawood Ibrahim) after committing a murder. Maqsood asks Babu and gang to kill a Pathan for him, but Arun asks for a share in the dock area revenues from the area of Agripada from Maqsood. He wants equality. In 1987, Babu gets out of hand when he beats up a prostitute who is close to Maqsood. Maqsood gets Babu's childhood friend to beat him to death inside the lockup. Maqsood doesn't reveal to Arun that he was the one who ordered Babu's death. Further, their clashes of ideologies and power game turn them against each other. Rama & Arun seek out Babu's friend Vijay who killed Babu. Immediately Arun & Rama find themselves in a police shootout led by Inspector Vijarkar Nitin, whom Arun shoots in the foot to escape. This is when Arun realizes that Maqsood was the one who set them up.
Meanwhile, Gawli marries his sweetheart Zubaida. Post wedding Maqsood and Arun try to make amends. Maqsood wants Arun to open up the docks area for his supply of cocaine in return of a 25% share. Arun doesn't trust Maqsood. Zubaida coaxes him to leave behind his murky profession. He almost makes up his mind to turn clean. But, when Rama gets killed in a brutal police encounter (led by Vijaykar), in 1988 Gawli takes in charge of their gang based in Dagdi. He suspects that Rama's killing was engineered by Maqsood and thus begins a gruesome gang war between them.
In 1988 Arun openly attacks Maqsood at a mosque and Maqsood retaliates by attacking Arun in his fortress in Dagdi, which results in the death of Arun's brother. In 1989 Maqsood leaves for Dubai. Hot on the heels is a cop, Vijaykar Nitin (Nishikant Kamat) who wants to nab Gawli at any cost and take him to task. The rest of the plot revolves around how one of India's most feared gangsters landed up in politics and his transition to becoming 'Daddy'.
in 1991, After Maqsood leaves India, Vijaykar arrests Arun and Arun goes willingly as he knows he will be the safest inside. But soon enough Maqsood sends his hit-men inside the jail as well. In 1993, riots hit Mumbai and Arun makes sure that all Muslims were safe in Dagdi. This was the start of his political career. For 10 yrs Arun moved from one jail to another to keep himself safe. This was all arranged by Zubeida.
After 10 yrs, he decides to run for MLA from Dagdi, and takes on the nickname Daddy when her daughter calls her Daddy on stage in front of thousands on people in a rally. A party MLA meets Arun to ask him to join their party, in exchange for police protection. When Arun asks to meet with his boss, the Chief Minister, the MLA is offended and insults Arun. when Arun is elected MLA, the party MLA again insults Arun by openly asking for a petition not to provide police protection to Arun. In exchange Arun has him assassinated. Vijaykar gets a witness who spills the beans against Arun in the MLA murder case. Vijaykar raids Dagdi to arrest Arun, but Arun and entire Dagdi opposes the police and Vijaykar has to back down. He is also severely reprimanded by his seniors. As Arun is running for MP, Vijaykar decides to stage an encounter for Arun, but Arun escapes, votes and is elected MP.
In his final act Vijaykar brings the MLA murder case to court and produces false witnesses and a fake evidence chain to prove that Arun gave the orders to assassinate the MLA. Arun is sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012. He is still awaiting an appeal
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
More from this title
More to explore
Most anticipated Indian movies and shows
Percentage shows amount of top page views.