[Did a shorter version of this review for Business Standard]
“Halka
paani ya bhadkeela?” is the question with which the friendship between Raja
Mishra (Saif Ali Khan) and Rudra (Jimmy Shergill) begins. The setting is a
wedding party and Rudra is asking Raja if he is fine with the soft drink he has
just been offered or if he wants something flashier, more potent. Raja opts for
the latter, and he certainly gets it over the course of this noisy film. After a few hours of bonding over liquor, banter and an
item girl, the two men expertly fight off an attack on the wedding house, and
so their fate is sealed: they are subsequently drawn into the politics and
mafia wars of the UP heartland. It is as if the simple act of drinking
“bhadkeela paani” has engendered events that turn a regular, job-seeking boy
into a superhero, a goonda or a “political commando”
(depending on your perspective). Even as Raja and Rudra retain their goofiness
and basic likability, the stakes will keep rising for them.
The
opening credits of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Bullett Raja are all
about colour and flash and dhishum and dhishkiyaon, and that’s mostly what
the film turns out to be too. Much has already been said about Dhulia, a
director of grounded hinterland stories with well-written characters, making a
no-holds-barred commercial film, a “potboiler”. Normally I’m wary of such
classifications, but after watching Bullett Raja I had to
concede the point. This is a clear homage to the mainstream Hindi film of the
1970s and 80s. There is a Sholay reference early on (“Hamesha
do kyon hote hain?” – “Why are there always two?” – grumbles a head villain
whose men have been vanquished by Raja and Rudra), and the very presence of
Gulshan Grover, Chunky Pandey and Raj Babbar (all of whom are reasonably well
used, with Pandey hamming it up from behind red-tinted glasses) is a reminder
of less sophisticated masala movies from times past. Bullett
Raja reaches for the tone of those films without trying to be a
cheeky, post-modern commentary on them; there is even a scene – filmed
straight, without irony – involving the death of a loved one and the hero
swearing vengeance through the flames of a funeral pyre.
Is
it a good potboiler though? I’m not so sure. Though
entertaining enough in patches, this is also an uneven, unfocused film, with
too much going on at the same time. Characters flit in and out of sight, there
are promising but not fully realised roles for Ravi Kishan and Vidyut Jamwal
(as men who are, in different ways, Raja’s nemeses), and Sonakshi Sinha’s
Mitali – the love interest – is no more than a random presence (though
perhaps this too is a nod to the functional part heroines played in 1980s
action movies). Some scene transitions are jarring, there are discontinuities
and gaps in character development, the action sequences are confusing and
go by before one can register what is happening. (Martial-arts star Jamwal
does have a couple of good fight scenes, though one of them
– a prolonged one involving a stealth attack on a gang of dacoits – plays more
as a personal setpiece for him, having little to do with the main narrative.)
Equally
random are the film’s superficial excursions into political correctness, as in
a scene involving a bellboy of Marathi origin and a little lesson about
national unity. But then, Bullett Raja does unexpectedly
become something of an India primer in its second half, first moving to
Bombay for a bump-and-grind song in a posh pub, a view of skyscrapers and a
glimpse of a film shoot involving Emraan Hashmi; then to Calcutta where Saif
and Sonakshi romance against picturesque backdrops including Howrah Bridge and
try to convince her sweet Bangla family of the seriousness of their
relationship. In between, there is a trip to the Chambal Valley where we meet
dakus (or baaghis) who dream of seeing Bipasha Basu dance while
also dreaming of education and a better way of life for
their children.
The
world shown here then is one where modernity and older, more primal ways of
life feed off each other. Feudal lines of power are very much in place, people
in high positions spend time in jail purely for convenience and continue fixing
deals – using Skype – while in their prison clothes; they speak in the salty
dialects of their home town but nonchalantly break into English when you least
expect it; meetings involving smartly dressed businessmen and politicians with
their laptops take place in what seems the middle of a jungle. In this setting,
it is always wise to touch the feet of hitmen, though you might – despite
obligatory nods to piety and tradition – casually swat away a
prasad-offering pandit who is interrupting an important
conversation. And people, regardless of their origins, can be many things.
Raja’s father, proud of their Brahmin ancestry, doesn’t want him to work in a
hotel, washing other people’s jhootha dishes – but later we
are reminded that “Brahmin rootha toh Ravana”. There are elderly men who are
set in their hopelessly corrupt lifestyles (“Iss umar mein toh kaam badal nahin sakte” muses a businessman), and
there are younger people who have more options available to them.
All
this might have added up to subtle commentary on the many faces, divides and
possibilities of a society, but that isn’t the kind of film Bullett
Raja is trying to be. There is an inevitable reference in the Chambal
scene to Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar, which was a much more
restrained film about a man crossing over to the other side of the
law and being unable to cross back. In a way, Bullett Raja
is Paan Singh Lite or Paan Singh Happy. Escape and escapism are real
possibilities here; they have to be, because a more commercial movie-making
tradition requires the hero to be a survivor, so that an apparently tragic
climax can later be revealed as something else altogether. Raja tells us at the
very beginning that he has spent his life doing “aafat se aashiqui”. Expect him
to do more of the same if there is a sequel, and to continue being as
bullet-resistant as ever.
[A post about Dhulia's Paan Singh Tomar is here]
[A post about Dhulia's Paan Singh Tomar is here]
Just watched it... and yes I came back with similar feeling... I felt the editing was awkward.. or probably they were cutting short a much longer film... so various portions of the story start and end abruptly without realizing their full potential...
ReplyDeleteAlso, songs in all Dhulia films have been sub par... either he just chooses the wrong music crew or he simply doesn't have the ear for music like say VB or AK... the film would have been so much better without those momentum killing, lip synched songs...
Jitaditya: yes, good observation - Dhulia certainly doesn't seem to have the innate interest in music and how it can be used in a film that VB or AK have. Also, in both this film and Sahib, Bibi aur Gangster, I thought the action sequences (the ones involving a large number of participants) could have been much better handled.
ReplyDeleteI wish the movie revolved around Vidyut Jamwal's character; he was so much more charismatic in his brief role than Saif who felt awkward to me. I hope Vidyut doesn't get ignored by skilful moviemakers like Ratnam or Ram Gopal (when he's in his Satya mode) or Sriram Raghavan. I feel the non-KJO sponsored talented actors always get short shrift. I felt the same about Arjan Bajaw and Rajeev Kandelwal; both have been relegated to doing the direct-to-video kind of movies which is such a shame for an audience member like me. Damn nepotism. I feel it's gotten worse with Kjo's ascent.
ReplyDeleteSlytherin: I know what you mean, though it would have been a very different sort of film in that case - Jamwal doesn't have Saif's range as an actor (not that that range has really been used well in Bullett Raja). It would have been a much better action film, definitely.
ReplyDelete