Witty, Sarcastic, Innovative and experimental are the words that come to mind while watching Taxi No 9211. A typical multiplex movie Taxi No 9211 continues the trend of unique and different films that are more and more appealing, especially to urban audiences. Taxi No 9211 is a film by Milan Luthria which tries to explore different personalities, different thought processes and finally the actions of different individuals.
A Ramesh Sippy production, Taxi No 9211 is directed by Milan Luthria and the cast consists of Nana Patekar(Raghav Shastri), John Abraham(Jai Mittal), Sameera Reddy and Sonali Kulkarni. The story begins with Sanjay Dutt’s narrative about the personalities of the two main protagonists. He delivers this in the true Munnabhai style making use of typical Mumbaiyya language.
Raghav is a taxi driver, who is always bad tempered and blames the entire world for all his problems particularly financial. He is a cynic and cannot hang on to any job for a long time due to his constant foul mood and quick to anger temperament. For this reason he lies to his wife that he is an insurance salesman. Jai Mittal is the rich, cool, sophisticated but spoilt brat son of an industrialist. His only interests are wine, women and money. He squanders all his father’s hard earned money and is of the attitude that money can buy him whoever and whatever he desires.
One fine day the path of these people from the two opposite strata’s of society happen to cross, from here begins their journey. Jai is travelling in Raghav’s cab and he insists that Raghav drives faster as he has to reach court. He will be contesting his father’s will who has given all his property and money to his friend and close aide Arjun Bajaj because of Jai’s philandering ways. They meet with an accident, Jai leaves Raghav to handle the situation and rushes off to get his father’s will from the bank vault only to find that he has dropped the key to the vault in Raghav’s cab.
Meanwhile Raghav is arrested for causing the accident and assaulting two people, he is locked up in jail. Jai finds out that Raghav is in jail, he goes there and asks him to return his key, but Raghav is miffed with Jai’s attitude and hence refuses. Jai tries everything to get his key back, he tells Raghav’s wife that he is not an insurance sales guy but a taxi driver; in return Raghav tries to kill Jai in an accident. What follows is a cat and mouse chase, where Raghav and Jai go to extremes to get their own way. They will not stop at anything until one of the parties wins.
The entire film is intertwined with witty and humorous moments; it is set in Mumbai and depicts the typical urban Mumbai ambience. The storyline is not phenomenal but it works due to the innovative style in which it is presented. It is an unpredictable storyline which takes you for an amazing joyride. The film basically revolves around the character sketch of the two main characters. Even the narrative by Sanjay Dutt is quiet an appealing and interesting idea. The writer has depicted two extremely strong individuals with vastly different personalities. The director presents his characters with utmost conviction.
The action sequences make a loud and impressionable mark on the viewers. The chase and stunts also catch the viewers attention. Vishal-Shekhar’s music is fun, funky, youthful and lively. The track Bambai Nagariya is exceptional and Mumbaikars will definitely take a special affiliation to it, it is sung in typical Bappi Lahiri style. Another song which is rendered well and has a great look is Meter Down by Adnan Sami. Even the other songs seem to fit in, with the situation well. The movie is only about two hours and depicts a day in the lives of these two individuals, it is edited well and credit for this goes to Arif Sheikh. It is not unnecessarily long and winding. There’s whole lot of drama in the film with many twists and turns that will keep you glued to your seat.
Nana Patekar delivers a punch packed performance; he is flawless in his portrayal of Raghav Shastri. His character manages to get under your skin. His comic timing is brilliant and he is superb in his emotional scenes. He brings energy into the film.
John Abraham too manages to give a good performance; he depicts Jai Mittal with complete honesty and dedication. This is in fact his best performance till date. The two actors share an amazing chemistry in this film; they manage to compliment each other with their style and acting. Sameera Reddy has a limited scope in the film as John’s girlfriend and her acting is just about average. Sonali Kulkarni as Nana Patekar’s docile housewife is quiet good and comes across as convincing. The rest of the cast has performed aptly.
On the downside the plot sounds unbelievable at times, the reason for the ire of the protagonists sounds unbelievable and also the lengths that each of them will go to outwit each other is unrealistic. The level of their rage is absurd. The director seems to have taken certain liberties with a few sequences; however the end seems to justify the means.
All in all, this is a light, fun innovative movie that also makes you introspect about the complexities of the characters. A fun movie which also makes you think is definitely what audiences want today. It is definitely worth a watch especially for Mumbaikars.