Johnny Gaddar has been mischaracterized as a thriller much too often for my liking.It quite simply isnt one.It isnt a who dunnit or why dunnit?(you know answers to these questions within the first 15-20 mins).But it definitely is a product of pulp rubbed with Hindi cinematic sensibilities with multiple homages garbed up in a plot as layered as an onion, and filled with characters whose heads are near impossible to get into.
The film is about a gang run by Seshadri(Dharmendra), a wily old smuggler with a heart of gold who has a quirky habit of listening to his departed wife’s voice on tape, which indulges in many legal and illegal activities.The gang members include Vikram, Shardul(Zakir Hussain), Prakash(Vinay Pathak), Kalyan(Govind Namdeo) and Shiva.As this ensemble group is about to embark on a deal that will catapult them into the bigger league, the youngest member of the gang Vikram plans to disappear with the entire jackpot.Vikram’s opening gambit is a neat double cross but as he indulges further into this the only losers he can leave behind are dead ones.
The film is mostly an existential tale of what after he dunnit[a tale of how he reassures or rather the lyrics reassure him, as "zindagi khel hai jua hai yaar, asli bas matlab hai yaar", to being punished not by the law but by a much higher force] .And therein lies a curious problem.For a film that is as showy/stylish as this, you want all the elements that make up a thriller to be present here.But, the screws dont quite tighten enough.Right from the opening credits Sriram Raghavan announces that he is going the retro route.You listen to the maddening soundtrack, you watch the lighting go’retro’, you watch 70’s style dishoom dishoom, heck even the light has gone ASI.But, you end up disappointed. Now, noir firstly and fore mostly is about femme fatale’s-Rimmi Sen? You expect the film’s plot to throw you loops-you get none.You wait for classic moments on screen and instead you watch the actors having a hard time playing themselves.The style and showiness are of no use unless the tension levels go ratcheting up.You, wait for quotable lines and all you get is a tepid "teen gadhe ghat pe.ghat pe khade rahe aur dhobi cycle lekar bhaag gaya! " There is hardly any emotional involvement here.The romance between Neil Nitin and Sen never really heats up.Neither do any of the characters chew up scenery in the scenes written in their favor.There is hardly any humor, hardly any irony.Hey, and why did Raghavan bother skewering the Coen’s-finger chopping scene? and Citizen Kane-the jigsaw puzzle?
The best moments in the film come when Raghavan decides to go for an original screenplay than skewering old films that he has seenAnd it is here where the look and the feel given to the film work perfectly in its favour.One my favourite scenes was Vinay Pathak(in rip roaring form)’s usual line "beech ka patta aaya to tere ko choda, nahin to toda" and it is these moments where you wonder what Johnny Gaddar could have been had been 20 minutes shorter and if its form married execution.
But yes the form and the actors.salvage the film to some extent.Vinay Pathak, Aswini Kalsekar, Zakir Hussain, Govind Namdeo all deliver pitch perfect performances.Dharmendra is okay.Neil Nitin Mukesh, is strangely opaque but then I guess it helps as you do no want to know what he is thinking.Overall he makes a competent debut.
But the real hero here is director bhai.David Lynch ya Quentin Tarantino tera naam kya hai director bhai?And once this guy gets over this "I have seen more films than you will ever see" glee, he will end up a great film-maker.For now, all I can say is that perhaps we have our real master of Dark arts in Indian Cinema as he manages to leave his footprint all over the movie, especially in scenes which could easily have been delegated to a stunt co-ordinator.