Sanjay Gupta death: Quentin Tarantino once revealed his favourite scene from Kaante despite Reservoir Dogs comparisons. 'Isn't it amazing'

Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta, who was known for bringing crime dramas and stylised action stories to Hindi cinema, has passed away at the age of 57. While his films such as Kaante, Shootout at Lokhandwala and Kaabil will always be part of his legacy, one of his most talked-about movies had earned an unexpected admirer in Hollywood filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. The director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs had particularly liked a sequence in Gupta's 2002 film Kaante.

The scene that caught Tarantino's attention was part of the film's warehouse sequence, which brought the story's tensions and betrayals to a violent climax.

Why Quentin Tarantino liked Kaante

Kaante, released in 2002, featured an ensemble cast comprising Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lucky Ali and Kumar Gaurav. The film followed six Indian men in Los Angeles who plan to rob a bank after facing trouble with the police.


The film drew comparisons with Tarantino's 1992 crime thriller Reservoir Dogs, with Gupta facing accusations that he had copied the Hollywood film. However, Tarantino himself had a very positive reaction after watching Kaante.

Speaking in an interview at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, as reported by The Times of India in 2007, Tarantino said, "I think it was fabulous. Of the many rip-offs (of Reservoir Dogs) I loved Hong Kong's Too Many Ways To Be No.1 and this one, Kaante."

He was particularly impressed by how Gupta expanded the individual characters' stories before bringing them together in the warehouse.

"Here I am, watching a film that I've directed and then it goes into each character's background. And I'm like, 'Whoa'," Tarantino said.

He explained that he usually wrote detailed backgrounds for his characters, but these were often removed during editing.

Talking about the warehouse sequence, Tarantino added, "I felt, this isn't Reservoir Dogs. But then it goes into the warehouse scene and I am like, 'Wow, it's back to Reservoir Dogs'. Isn't it amazing!"

What made Kaante's climax memorable?

The warehouse sequence is very important for the film's ending. After the bank robbery goes wrong, the six men start to suspect that someone among them has betrayed the group.

Their suspicions eventually turn towards Maqbool 'Mak' Haider, played by Lucky Ali, whose real identity as an undercover LAPD officer comes to light.

The confrontation among them then develops into a Mexican standoff, with the remaining gang members pointing guns at one another. As tensions rise, Andy (played by Kumar Gaurav) escapes with the stolen money, while others are caught in a deadly exchange of gunfire.

Sanjay Gupta's response to comparisons with Reservoir Dogs

Gupta, meanwhile, had a complicated relationship with the comparisons between the two films. He faced repeated accusations of copying Tarantino's work but disputed the idea that Kaante was simply a remake.

In an interview with Cyrus Broacha, Gupta claimed that he had never watched Reservoir Dogs in its entirety, saying he found the film boring after its first 10 or 15 minutes. He argued that Kaante had a considerably larger story, particularly because of the characters' individual backgrounds.

Gupta also recalled that Tarantino had publicly expressed his preference for the way Kaante developed its characters.