Road is Rajat Mukherjee’s second film for the Ram Gopal Varma Productions after his directorial debut with Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya. Well with this film, one should ask Rajat Tune Kya Kiya? Heavily promoted as a Ram Gopal Varma film with decent music and titillating dance sequences, Road fails to deliver the goods. The story promising to be a thriller at the beginning of the film takes a wrong turn and does not come back on track till the end of it. The film begins with a very in love couple Arvind (played by Vivek Oberoi) and Lakshmi (Antara Maali) deciding to elope. The second scene in the theatre that shows the couple fighting suddenly bursts into a song. And before you can get over the first one, the second song begins. Fortunately soon enters the villain (if you could call him that) Manoj Bajpai. Manoj aka Babu takes a lift from these two and hence begins the journey. Babu as it would turn out to be is a gangster and to add to it also a psycho. A role that could have been essayed effectively only by Bajpai. Alongwith being a bad guy, he is also a sucker for love. And falls head-over-heels for Miss Navel Ring. Ends up kidnapping her by throwing Vivek out in hope of her falling for him. The hero’s attempts to get his girl friend back in what progresses.
A few characters dish in and dish out with not enough significance or relevance. Characters like Rajpal Yadav and the others - who are regulars of the Ram Gopal Varma camp - are wasted in one-bit scenes. The film is watchable thanks to Manoj’s character, his performance and his one-liners. Hey and don’t forget his dream sequence. What must have started out as a great idea on paper falls flat because of its weak screenplay.
The songs although sound nice are a hindrance to the story. Especially the item number with Koena Mitra and Ganesh Acharya. Who wants to see an overweight, ugly guy dancing with a bimbette? And to beat it, while there is this young peppy crowd dancing to the song, an inspector comes in to ask the dhabawallah whether he has seen any city guy. The only technical beauty is the camerawork. Sudesh Chatterjee is the cinematographer and given the fact that this is his first film he has done an incredible job. If you like Manoj Bajpai, then you should definitely watch this film. Otherwise there is going to be no fun going down this Road.