Banjo starts off really well but loses track even before the middle and feels utterly superficial after some time. The scond half if the film is plain terrible. In the opening scenes in which funny man Vijay Raaz provides the voiceover, the slums and chawls of Mumbai are captured on camera in their humdrum and seedy existence with graphic detailling. But no great attention is subsequently paid to the progression of the story and the writting of dialouges. It is an extremly vacuous take on giving a new respectability to street musicians prospering in the alleys of amchi Mumbai and giving the tinsel town its trademark sound. Acclaimed Marathi film director Ravi Jadhav, who has made his debut in Bollywood, will have to start ftom scratch again as this hotchpotch recipe is not going to work.
Riteish Deshmukh has apparently worked on his looks and grown his looks for the role of a petty goon who moonlights as a banjo artiste. But the reaults are mixed. He is not exactly lousy to be fair; still the spark is missing. In multistarrer comedy capers, Deshmukh has been able to find a slot of his own, but solo movies are a different ball game altogether. Leggie beauty Nargis Fakhri continunes to appear in one movie after another with extremely bad acting and even worse accent. The other actors - Luke Kenny in particular - are, however, watchable.
For a film whose USP should have been its music, Vishal-Shekhar’s score somehow falls short to meet the demands. That is really disappointing.