Review : Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

Director : Milan Luthria

Writer : Rajat Arora

Music : Pritam Chakraborty

Cast : Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Kangna Ranaut, Prachi Desai

What goes for the film : Lovely dialogues, solid performances

What goes against the audience : The director trying to bite more than he can chew

Cinemaa Opinion : Once Upon… continues the bright run of the last couple of weeks at the BO. Scroll down for detailed review.

Pulp Semi-fiction

There are three basic ways in which a filmmaker can make a gangster flick engaging and enjoyable. Make an out and out entertainer; make a cinematic piece d’art seeped in realism or engage the audience in a debate on moral and personal questions. The first two are approaches that Hindi filmmakers have often attempted with varied levels of critical and commercial success. The third one though, is relatively an unexplored avenue with Yash Chopra’s Deewar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda & Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya being the only standout names.

Milan Luthria tries to straddle all three horses with Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, a task that even a maestro at the genre like RGV hasn’t succeeded at, so far. His Satya came closest to a perfect amalgamation of all three approaches, but was too dark a film to be termed an entertainer. Once Upon… seeks to entertain – it does so resoundingly well; it seeks to establish parallels with real life characters and events as well as to create a period ambience of the 70’s – this part is executed with mixed success. Though when it comes to its third ambition – that of texturing it with a moral debate – what comes across is a half-hearted attempt and failure.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai goes back to the 70’s when organized crime was just finding its feet in the country’s financial capital. With protagonists modeled on two of the biggest names in the city’s underworld, Haji Mastan & Dawood Ibrahim, it charts a fictional account of how the Mafiosi established their foothold in the city. Sultan Mirza is the city’s first godfather, bringing together the different gangs operating in the city and organizing their businesses. Shoaib Khan is the upstart son of a cop who idolizes Sultan and dreams of making it big. Sultan takes Shoaib under his wings and the latter works towards a meteoric rise in the organizations ranks. Trouble brews when the protégé starts dreaming bigger than the mentor. The film uses ACP Wilson as the narrative POV and the treatment is classic Bollywood with drama taking precedence over everything else but that works more in the film’s favour than against it.

The dialogues are where the film gets maximum mileage in the entertainment stakes. Be it the adrenaline thumping lines of bravado and grit; the measured playfulness of the romantic exchanges or the barbs at the system, there’s a barrage of whistle-worthy lines right through the film. The dialogues are used very effectively to establish the characters and also throw in references to the period. The pace is leisurely, allowing one to soak in the impact of each line and thus avoiding the usual clutter that a writer usually succumbs 0to while displaying his wit. Complimenting the dialogues ably is the gritty background score and the optimum use of ambient light, thus allowing the film to carry a light feel, unlike the usual grim settings and disturbing BGM of gangster films. The songs are unobtrusive and fairly melodious…just fairly.

The performances by the lead cast as well as a few of the supporting players are solid without being exceptional. Ajay Devgn is top-rate as Sultan Mirza and Emraan Hashmi delivers an unexpectedly balanced turn as Shoaib. Randeep Hooda is quite effective in the limited character of ACP Agnel Wilson (based on Julio Ribeiro?). Kangana Ranaut & Prachi Desai as the love interests of the two leads serve their purpose quite well. Naved Aslam as Sultan’s Henchman as well as the actor who plays Shoaib’s father are impressive.

That the protagonists are based on the real life characters of Haji Mastan & Dawood is no secret. There are enough references in the film that tie them to the inspirations. Which begs the answer to a bigger question. When will we be able to shed of this hypocrisy where we need to put up the customary declaration of no real life connections even when there’s a conscious effort to create those connections. Anyways, apart from the references to the inspirations, the realism quotient is not very high in the film. Which is a disappointment – especially when the title, promos and the very premise of the film hinge on a period gone by. The costumes seem to be more from the 70’s theme parties that happen these days rather than depicting actual 70’s dressing sense. There are glaring and inexcusable gaffes like product placement for cigarette brands that didn’t even exist back in that day and police uniforms which are extremely contemporary in their feel. And just for those inattentive ears, the city was called Bombay back then.

The biggest disappointment in the film is something that could have been easily avoided. The opening of the film and its closing are an overt attempt to sneak in a layer of moral ambiguity into the film. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is so immersed in its drama that it hardly lays any stress on the morality of the protagonists and of their actions; thus rendering this moral posturing worthless. Even structurally, a non-inclusion of this aspect wouldn’t have hurt the film much. Just clipping out the opening and closing of the film and narrating the rest from a third person’s POV would have been more apt.

But in spite of its flaws, Once Upon… remains a brave attempt and a highly enjoyable watch. Watch it for the performances, for the dialogues and for the mature handling of a gangster flick by Luthria. After the magical Love, Sex Aur Dhokha, this is another feather in the cap for Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures. Is the lady who revolutionized television in India (though the direction wasn’t much to my personal liking) all set to bring about a cinematic revolution too? Her sense of direction this time, though eclectic, has been to my liking so far. My fingers are crossed.