| Release Date: 12 November 2020 (India) Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime IMDb Rating: 7.6 Director: Anurag Basu Cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Bachchan, Rajkummar Rao, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Sanya Malhotra, Rohit Saraf, Pearle Maaney, Asha Negi, |
Featuring four interconnected stories, Anurag Basu’s latest offering was pretty much a mixed bag for me, with promising performances in service of a story that doesn’t always work with a large number of its attempts at humour falling flat for me. The movie does rise up in the second half compared to the first, but in its pursuit of trying to portray connections between the stories, the sheer forced nature of some of those will leave you rolling your eyes. I will be focussing on the stories separately.
Abhishek Bachchan for me was the scene-stealer in the only story that had me invested throughout. His bonding with Mini is easily the high point of the movie. Playing a criminal just released from jail yearning for his wife and daughter who have left him, he brings heart and sincerity to his performance.
Pankaj Tripathi plays the character linking the four stories. We all have come to expect great things from him, and he doesn’t disappoint. His story with Lata Kutty played really well by Shalini Vatsa is developed well and you care for them but then in its attempt to try and form connections with the other stories, it goes into a detour that feels out of place.
As for the other stories they mostly left me indifferent. The worst of the bunch being the one with Rajkummar Rao and Fatima Sana Sheikh which sticks out like a sore thumb. The actors are committed to the roles, that is true for all of them and even here too, but after a point, you just stop caring for the overdone antics of Rajkummar Rao and the story itself feels drawn out way too much.
The parts involving the resurfaced sex tape and the bag of cash blow hot and cold with once again the performances by Aditya Roy Kapoor, Sanya Malhotra, Pearle Maaney, and Rohit Saraf being really good, but the story they are in service of once again not on the same level.
As for the songs, I love the use of ‘Qismat Ki Hawa’ which gets stuck in your head and encapsulates the movie really well. But the actual songs of the movie are mostly unnecessary and feel like stopping the narrative flow. The humor in the first half mostly didn’t work for me.
The second half was more successful in investing me and having an actual good time with the jokes landing well before the final act where a lot of the attempts at creating connections between the stories that don’t feel natural and for a movie trying highlight the wildness and unpredictability of life, almost all the final resolutions are pretty conventional and plain.
But overall I can say I liked the movie, mainly due to the performances which always felt committed and made the best out of the mostly subpar material provided to them, and the fact that the second half was more entertaining than the first act, does leave you with a bit better taste when the credits roll.
I also liked the Anurag Basu and Rahul Bagga cameos and the way it adds to the overarching theme of the story. I will close with a shout-out to Abhishek Bachchan who still continues to be underrated but yet again shows his abilities here in a performance low on dialogues that he owns just with his body language and expressions.
My Rating:
