Dropout At Wadala

After the half-decent Shootout At Lokhandwala, its sequel, based on S Hussain Zaidi's book Dongri To Dubai, is far from tastefully dramatising the reality of the events that transpired at the time. Sanjay Gupta's Shootout At Wadala is nothing but a voyeuristic, sensationalised account and a childish re-telling of an interesting chapter in modern history.

The film opens with Manya Surve (John Abraham), with multiple bullet wounds at the back of a police van, who begins re-living and narrating events that led to this day, to inspector Afaaque Baagban (Anil Kapoor). This dull narrative pattern where the film oscillates between the past and present, with the duo sitting in the van, is awfully overdone and sours the experience. That apart, the plot revolves around the rise and fall of Bombay's 'Hindu gang' led by the infamous Manya Surve.

With corny dialogues like 'Police ki goli mein itna loha hota hai, ki ek baar thok diya, toh zindagi bhar khoon mein iron ki kami nahi hogi' and a couple of instances where Dilawar Ibrahim (Sonu Sood) and Munir Sheikh (Tusshar Kapoor) explain what a 'saccha muslamaan' must do, the film is a crude, verbose work that leads nowhere.

The screenplay is too loose and some scenes run a minute or two even after the point is made. Some scenes between Manya and his beau (Kangna Ranaut) could have easily been avoided to reduce the duration of this awfully long film. The three item numbers too, simply add to screen time and have no value addition to the story. Bubbly Badmaash, especially, comes and goes between two really pivotal sequences in the film and completely kills the mood.

The item numbers, however, explain what this film is all about. It's all titillation and no substance. Manoj Bajpai's genuine performance as Sabir Ibrahim goes in vain as the rest of the cast, and the screenplay, fail to hold up. John Abraham, letting his body do the work for him yet again, looks like a bad imitation of Sanjay Dutt from Vaastav. Kangna Ranaut is like the last minute replacement at a school play, who barely has the lines by-heart. Sonu Sood is decent and Tusshar Kapoor tries too hard but is only half as good as he was in Shootout At Lokhandwala.

The emotion of the film is the only thing that is from 30 years ago. The liberties taken in recreation of the time period are insincere and inconsistent. And between all the loud dialogues and flashy dance numbers, you are left searching for a film that you had set out to watch.

Rating - 1.5 out of 5

Published in DNA (Pune) on May 4, 2013

I, Me aur Meh!

A film whose basic premise is primarily a mother saying “I should have slapped you long ago” to her son; Kapil Sharma's I, Me aur Main is a moral in search of a story. Starring John Abraham, Chitrangda Singh and Prachi Desai; the film is all gloss and hardly any substance.

The film opens with a scene where a small boy gets undue support from his mother in a petty play-time quarrel with his sister over the possession of a paper-plane. With that one instance, the director assumes that he has drawn a perfect character sketch as the film jumps 25 years to show what has become of this spoilt little child. Now in a committed relationship, Ishaan Sabharwal (John) is still childish in his approach to life, yet manages being conceited and selfish. Fed up of putting up with such a guy, his girlfriend, Anushka (Chitrangda), puts her foot down and ends the relationship. Ishaan moves to a different apartment, where he meets Gauri (Prachi), a designer and a chirpy young girl, who he gradually falls in love with. But just as he feels he has moved on, his past catches up with unfulfilled commitments. The film explores whether or not Ishaan lives up to his dilemma and whether or not he does the right thing.

With an undulating story which feels like haphazard chunks of events pasted together; the film, from start to finish, has an air of inconsistency about it. A poorly written screenplay which does not aid the mediocre story at all, quite visibly falters with a lot of important details either left to imagination or simply revealed in a verbose manner, through the ordinary and seemingly choreographed dialogues. The characters are extremely shallow and you feel no connect to them; especially because you feel no connect between the characters themselves. At times, scenes go by and you wonder whether the characters are playing that game where every other person has to say something entirely unrelated to what the first person said.

The one word that best describes this film is confusion. Confusion of dialogues, confusion of the relationship dynamics of the characters and confusion from a directorial point of view in knowing what the motives of his characters are. This, coupled with casual performances from the cast have severely dented this film. Zarina Wahab and Chitrangda Singh are fairly ordinary, owing to the lack of depth of their characters. Prachi Desai's character of Gauri seems to have received a one word brief – hyperactive. And John Abraham has done his job by bringing his face and abs on the poster to sell tickets.

Overall, the film is so loose in its structure; that you don't feel like you've just watched one single film. A few cute scenes in isolated parts of the film aside, the missing link in the narrative, that binds the film together is quite evident. And after four good Fridays at the box office, this, coupled with RGV's The Attacks of 26/11, means a gloomy weekend at the theatres.

Rating - 1.5 out of 5

Published in DNA After Hrs (Pune) on March 2, 2013