Ah Sanjay Gupta - you’re at it again. Copying - no, seeking inspiration- from Hollywood films. This time you chose Reservoir Dogs, that cultmovie made by Quentin Tarantino. You got close friend Sunjay Dutt to do the role of one of the 6 thugs, and got assorted other actors ranging in
caliber from Amitabh to Kumar Gaurav to newcomer Mahesh Manjrekar. You assembled a troupe of Hollywood technicians, you got yourself a funky new camera, and you hit upon the idea of filming the entire movie in Amrika. And how you must have hoped to put together a decent film. And how yet again you failed miserably.
So the movie starts with the 6 thugs - all strangers to each other - plotting to rob a bank in which the cops deposit their money. ’’It’s not that difficult’’ says Sunju Baba, coz the place has less security. Eh? And why do they want to rob the bank? Not the least for the money, but because they want to get even with the LA cops who keep rounding them up
whenever any crime is committed in LA. ’’We’ll show them for messing around with us Indians’’ says Amitabh. What crap is this???
And then we are shown some patchy background scenes of the
daakus - Amitabh has a sick wife who has had all sorts of American doctors scratching their heads wondering what has happened to her. And since they can’t do anything, the couple now want money to pack up and go back to Desi docs! Kumar Gaurav needs money to fight a divorce, Sunil Shetty doesn’t want his girlfriend to continue working as a strip bar dancer - he wants a ’’saaf-suthri ladki who can lead a sharafat ki zindagi’’. About Sunju we are told nothing, and Mahesh Manjrekar and Lucky Ali are some ’’aawara lafange’’ types.
The dakus hatch their hi-tech plan, get a truckload of weapons and explosives, do target practice on top of LA skyscrapers (??), decide on a rendezvous after the robbery, and go ahead and rob the bank. Unfortunately the cops come to know of their plans and lie in wait for them. Then follows a nerve-jangling shootout scene in which the LA cops
take bullet after bullet, while our daakus manage to dodge all except one which finds its mark in Lucky Ali’s arm. Somehow they escape and meet at their rendezvous, cognizant of the fact that one of them is a cop and has leaked their plans to the cops. Who is he? How to find him? Can they trust each other?
Kaante has more thorns than roses. The rosy part stays with you as long as the director follows the original. However as soon as the director injects Bollywood masala, you start to wonder why you are watching the film. Really, the bank robbery scenes were such crap! And so we have Amitabh talking with the manager in Hindi, then translating his words so that the manager comprehends. Then hotshot software master Kumar Gaurav plugs some junk into something and sees the words ’’Cameras disabled’’ blaring on the screen, daakus don their masks, hold everyone at gunpoint, storm into the vault which software master has opened and stash piles of notes into bags. Then all 6 of them stride out of the bank in a line feeling really smug and dandy about their handiwork. What made Sanjay Gupta come up with such a novel bank robbery scene when the original movie didn’t?
The performance by the daakus is nothing to write home about. Amitabh thankfully restrains himself (remember Aankhen). Sunju Baba is his usual drugged-eyes-flat-dialogue-delivery self. Sunil Shetty looks like he wants to get outta there and do a normal goon-bashing film. The less said about Kumar Gaurav the better. Lucky Ali is given a few dialogues here and there, and has mostly to lie comfortably on a sofa in the daaku
adda. Mahesh Manjrekar has the best lines and goes over the top in some scenes. Some of the better scenes in the movie are the interactions between Sunjay Dutt, Amitabh and Manjrekar. Gulshan Grover tries his best Italian-mafia-don imitation, constantly muttering ’’chingado’’ something while conversing with Shetty. Malaika Arora has plenty of
exposure, and can’t act for nuts.
I still can’t figure out why the movie was shot in green color. Camera effects have been used in plenty, one gets tired of seeing motion blur shots of the daakus walking, shooting, running. The music is quite ok - the Malaika and Isha item numbers are steamy. The daakus pondering over
their destiny in the ’’Jaane Kya Hoga Rama Re’’ number is quite hilarious. You almost feel it’s Gupta praying about the movie!
All in all an over-hyped nerve-wracking movie. Give this a skip unless you want to see ’’Reservoir Dogs’’ dressed up with Bollywood masala.