Mumbai Saga; Cast: John Abraham, Emraan Hashmi, Mahesh Manjrekar, Amole Gupte, Suniel Shetty, Kajal Aggarwal, Rohit Roy, Anjana Sukhani, Prateik Babbar; Direction: Sanjay Gupta; Rating: * * (two stars)
Sanjay Gupta’s newest is an extension of his trademark “Shootout” movies, reloading acquainted uber-violence with old-school Bollywood drama about cops, gangsters and the self-seeking political set, packing in loud dialogues and the important naach-gaana.
Coming after “Shootout At Lokhandwala” and “Shootout At Wadala”, and at a time when all the pieces about cinema is being drastically reorganised, “Mumbai Saga” wanted to have some kind of a USP. It would not — Gupta and staff appear assured that bringing again a whiff of what labored as soon as upon a time in Bollywood could be sufficient to rake it in at a time when the viewers is just cautiously returning to the halls.
Like the “Shootout” movies, “Mumbai Saga”, too, banks on a slice of real-life to arrange its fictional action-drama quotient. This time, Gupta falls again on an important section of Mumbai’s up to date socio-politics — the eighties and the nineties — when town’s mills, unfold throughout prime property, have been introduced down so as to facilitate the development of high-end highrises, and malls.
At the core of the story is Amartya Rao (John Abraham), a made-to-order Bollywood hero who stands up towards the goons of a neighborhood powerful, Gaitonde (Amol Gupte), after they harass native shopkeepers for ‘hafta’.
As Amartya goes for the large bash-up — decreasing Gaitonde’s bunch of baddies to pulp — he catches the attention of a neighborhood politician, Bhau (Mahesh Manjrekar), who realises Amartya could possibly be moulded into an important ally in his bid to rule town.
Following template, there’s a cop ‘hero’ to tackle John’s gangster antihero. Emraan Hashmi as Inspector Vijay Savarkar takes up the problem of thwarting Amartya’s formidable rise, however not earlier than half the movie is thru.
The movie adheres to the Bollywood textbook of yore whereas setting cop hero-versus-Robinhood antihero tussle between Emraan and John.
Sanjay Gupta and Robin Bhatt’s screenwriting narrates a gangster’s story from a gangster’s standpoint, so the storytelling is of course structured to glamorise Amartya. John makes probably the most of it, banking on brawn energy and scoring as an motion hero in a movie that primarily centres on his machismo to garner mass enchantment. He lives up to his motion star billing, although he may have toned down the tendency to ham within the drama scenes.
In distinction, Emraan Hashmi is usually left tackling a job that pales within the swagger-strutting contest. A cop chasing a gangster in a gangster flick is all the time a tricky act to win the ‘taalis’ and seeties’ with. In any case, Vijay Savarkar comes throughout as a personality that would have been written higher.
Sanjay Gupta has well solid two filmmakers with confirmed appearing credentials in pivotal supporting roles. Both Mahesh Manjrekar and Amol Gupte method primarily cliched characters with a sure recent method, which is unquestionably an asset for the movie. Almost the entire remaining solid have little to do.
“Mumbai Saga” comes throughout as an try to have fun the cliches that outlined Bollywood success within the heydays of the masala movie. Sadly, the movie will get entangled within the net of the very cliches it units out to toast, principally as a result of it lacks ample creativeness in storytelling and depth in execution.
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