After much prodding from my punjabi peeps, listening to them singing the songs and reciting the script, I went and saw this movie. I entered the theatre, expecting to be seated amongst a throng of male moviegoers waiting for their fix of violence. What I entered was emptiness. Surprised and confused, I shrugged the urge to leave and was prepared to watch a good movie. I should have listened to my gut feeling.
The Cast
Amitabh Bachchan is Major. He wants the money so he can take care of his sick wife. Sanjay Dutt plays Ajju. Looks good with shorter hair. No longer reminds me of a creepy terrorist. Sunil Shetty, always looking hot, plays yummy Marc Issak. Mahesh Manjrekar plays Baali. Crazy, hair fluffing Baali. Lucky Ali plays Mak. Kumar Gaurav is Andy, who I guessed as very quiet. Smart guy. Wants the money so he can have custody of his child. And Ranjit Chowdhry plays McQuarrie’s partner. I couldn’t shake the image of him as the drag queen in Hollywood Bollywood, though.
The Plot
There’s not much to it. Five men are captured by the police for a reason I couldn’t figure out, and while in the same jail cell, they conspire to knock off a bank. Not only is it a bank, it is the bank where the officers deposit their paycheques. I guess it is payback. So they’re let off, and they go through a big planning process. The bank robbery is finally occurring after much deliberation and singing, but something goes wrong. The police are waiting outside the bank for them. A massive, long, loud, bloody gun war erupts between the criminals and the LAPD (and Swat team, I think), and each criminal escapes after (to me) what seemed like hours. After that, it’s a game between the psycho minds and the other psycho minds. Nobody decides to split the money and run. They sit there and argue, and end up shooting each other. And one person walks away with all the money....
My Opinion
This film was a Hindi version of Reservoir Dogs, so it gets a 0 for originality. Also, there were many things that made me say, out loud in the theatre, ’’wait a minute, that couldn’t happen!’’. Like how all the criminals were placed in the same cell so they could deliberate and plan. They shot guns off a highrise in downtown LA and nobody heard them? And this is the best of all: five men drinking and dancing gaily.
’’Bottle colling, daaru pouring. Samja kiya.’’ (excuse the horrible printed Hindi, but I can only say it, not spell it).
I did, however, like the individual characters, especially Baali, played by the very talented Mahesh Manjrekar. His character was supposed to be a little slow, and he played it so well, I really did believe he might just be a little mentally retarded. The only other thing I liked was the music. It was upbeat and catchy and I found myself breaking into various tracks complete with dance at any time of day.
I recommend this movie to guys obsessed with Sanjay Dutt, killing, and guns.