Excuse the title. I have been away from Bollywood cinema for nearly 8 weeks, engrossed in my new job role, and also getting my short film BIN MOKSH into festivals. It premiers on June 3rd 2007, at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in the UK. It then goes to Everglades Film Festival in South Africa, and from there on to others – I hope. Catch it if you can – I shall post the dates here soon.

Anyways, here I was, all excited about seeing the always loveable Sanjay Dutt, teamed up again with his buddy Sanjay Gupta, under the white feathers banner that too, to bring us another film. Another film, and that too directed by Aporva . Having the Balaji name to the project didn’t do much for me, so either ways, it doesn’t impress me or make me put it down.

Reel Life – A bunch of local goons, working for ‘a’ don based out of Dubai (yawn, yawn and more yawns). They are ruthless, psychopathic (or so they want you to believe), children of the struggling middle class in Mumbai, and – yes a big AND, they want to do things on their own terms, form their own gang and be the bosses of themselves (Eh, something that you saw in a film called Company. Heck they even got one of those characters out of that film and put him in here, as the main guy in the gang – Vivek Oberoi). These guys are getting tougher and creating havoc in the city called Mumbai. Though mind you, I wish a lot more screen time was given to establish this. As we all know, the police seem to do things the wrong way – like making them surrender, catching them for the intention of presenting them to the court. Well, screw all that. Here we have to tough cop Sanjay Dutt who decides that the only way to sort these thugs is to get rid of them – shoot to kill. So he goes about to put together, what he calls ‘only the best’ in this team. He chooses Sunil Shetty and Arbaz Khan and trust me, there is no justification on what basis he felt they were the ‘best’. But anyways, let us let that be. Finally, all of a sudden, towards the end of the film, these cops, along with – hold your breath – 400 odd cops surrender a residential building, wherein Vivek and his gang (5 in total) are hiding out in a flat. 400 cops for 5 guys!!! Anyways still very believable – get the bastards, I say. Then, when 2 of these gang members get killed, we have three of our heroes, who go after the 3 left gang members – Sanjay Dutt goes after Vivek Oberoi, Sunil Shetty goes after Tushaar Kapoor, and Arbaaz Khan goes after Rohit Roy (I think that is his name). Anyways, here is the best part, when these guys go in after each one of them, the 400 odd cops let these officers go in alone, while they stay back, eh…. Sorry I don’t know what. But hey, don’t question it, as it makes for good old ‘good guys bash up the bad guys’. Anyways the good guys win. Yaaay! But the film is a flash back, which basically shows that the three good cops are being interrogated by a certain Mr. Bachchan. I didn’t realize what he was supposed to be, i.e. a top guy within the police force or a special branch kind of guy. However, he doesn’t really do much, except tries to act (Yes that hurt me to say that, as I am his biggest fan). He tries to be convincing, but that fell flat on his face. At the end it is revealed that he is infact the lawyer who is going to represent these three good guys in court. Phew, I could have never seen that coming – I swear I am not kidding. Then in court, the judgment is based on one, just one question and NO other discussion. Yeap, you heard that right. The question Mr. Bachchan puts forth to the court is ‘there is man outside your house with a gun in his hand. Your wife and kids are inside the house. Who would you wish that man with the gun was? Sanjay Dutt’s character or one of the bad guys?’ Justice has never been so simple and/or touching.

Real Life – There is so much I saw in this film, which actually did strike a human chord within. I could feel for Vivek’s mother, as much as I could feel for Vivek too. You can see, why she raised him that way and wanted him to be tough. You can see, why Vivek turned out to be that way too. I liked Sanjay Dutt’s character too – he was very convincing as that cop, committed and didn’t mince words, not even when his family life comes shattering down. He was real and in character all thru out. Arbaz’s character was very true too, specially what he tells his kid, sitting on a bench outside their school. I can see a lot of people feeling that and sharing it with their kids. Tushaar’s character wasn’t really well sketched. Sunil Shetty, I reckon turned up on the set to visit friends and just got into frame. Ditto Abhishek Bachchan, but I guess he had just a few hours to spare, so ended up doing a cameo. What I also loved was that in the end, Fatu (one of the bad guys), comes back to warn the gang about the cops arriving, when he himself could have run away. I guess, no matter what we do, people will always bond to atleast another human huh?

Cinematically – Lots of style, very little substance. Lots of opportunities of which very little were materialized. The songs were pathetic, not just in placement, but as songs too. That ‘Ganpat’ song seemed quiet promising until I saw it visually. Amithab should never have done this role, or rather done it properly. Tushaar is the surprise package in the film, he does deliver better than he ever has. The film is very sleek, very stylish, but I feel so sad that these guys did not concentrate on the script and the screenplay. Another point is also that there was excessive violence without justification.

On the whole, this is, in many ways a guy flick. But even then, not really. It’s not good enough to fall into the Kaante category.

Tagore is based out of Dubai, wherein he works within the IT industry. He is also a writer and has recently directed his first short BIN MOKSH, which is doing it’s rounds across festivals.