Bharathi Pradhan

It’s a sweet premise. A scrooge named Ramakant (Rajkummar Rao) who’ll go to any lengths to save even six rupees. A wife named Shilpa (Sanya Malhotra) who won’t think twice before buying a decent wedding gift. A housing complex for seniors, the low rent just right for the miser. Neighbour D’souza Aunty (Seema Pahwa) who offers toast and a reduction in rent to eternally scrimping Ramakant. Glenn D’souza (Abhishek Banerjee), somewhat shady. Elderly Pherwani Aunty (Archana Puransingh). Sleazy minister Amol Amre (Jitendra Joshi) who must get his hands on a video clip exposing him as a womaniser. Inspector Balagode (Upendra Limaye), dispatched by the minister to deal with the blackmailer and retrieve the incriminating video. Ramakant on a mission to get back the expensive toaster he’d gifted a couple whose wedding has been called off.

Looking at the glittering malls, spiffy offices, high-end restaurants and luxury high rises of Lower Parel today, it’s tough to imagine that five decades ago, this was a part of Mumbai – or Bombay as it was then called – the elite never stepped into. This was where textile mills thrived and workers went on a much-politicised strike when the first move was made to down the shutters and turn the area into swank, upper-crust commercial and residential property. This was also where politics and the police force played their part when Matka King Ratan Khatri came up with a unique gamble and prospered beyond imagination. Winning and losing in large numbers became an addiction for workers of the area while elsewhere too, the Matka King’s game was played in various towns and rural districts.

There is something called expiry date and Priyadarshan’s latest film is a fine example of it. With three co-writers on board – Aakash Kaushik, Abhilash Nair, Rohan Shankar – director Priyadarshan attempts to retrieve ownership of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise. But to float a film which has a similar sounding title and to pack it with the same elements of a deserted haveli, a locked room with a horrifying secret plus a closely resembling cast that includes Tabu and Rajpal Yadav, is not sufficient to re-create the engaging comedy-horror of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa series. There are two areas where Priyadarshan’s work does not take off the way it was expected to.

The cinematic grammar is the same. After a long disclaimer, Aditya Dhar returns to his chapter-wise narrative style that flags off with A Burnt Memory – the turning of family-loving fauji Jaskirat Singh Rangi (Ranveer Singh) into hardened undercover agent Hamza Ali Mazari. There’s a brief introduction to UP gangster Atif Ahmed, there are criminals operating on both sides of the border, drugs are a big deal with the underworld, patriotism is never on the table. With Shashwat Sachdev’s now-familiar Aari Aari as the BG score, an unhurried Dhar returns to a post-Dakait Lyari that’s struggling for a new leader. Unhurried to such an extent that by the time he reaches halftime, you are restless.

When two village kids look up at a plane and wonder how people inside an aircraft poop up there, it’s sweet, it’s innocent but it’s been heard many times before. That sums up director Suresh Triveni’s one-man fight against corruption, a sirf ek bandaa kaafi hai kind of battle with the backdrop of a cruel sand mining mafia, insensitive government employees who repeatedly tell citizens to “come back tomorrow”, and policemen who look the other way, refusing to file an FIR. You’ve seen it before.

The intent is to normalise gay relationships, a gay marriage in this case, where the focus is on the story and not on raising eyebrows over sexual preferences. To that extent director Anubhuti Kashyap, and writers Sima Agarwal and Yash Keswani pull it off. Once Dr Geetika Sen (Konkona Sen Sharma) and “wife” Dr Meera (Pratibha Ranta) are accepted by the viewer just as casually as the people in their workplace do, it’s the investigation into a sexual misconduct case that should be the focus.

When a film talks about a crime as dastardly as rape, gang rape in this case, its social import is disturbing. The nocturnal rape of schoolteacher Parima (Kani Kusruti) on a lonely stretch in Delhi, brings out all that’s expected of a crime. Those equipped to get away with it, will escape jail term without too much of a compromise with the conscience. The victim will stay traumatised, the family bewildered, helpless. The lawyer will fight but justice will be frustratingly elusive. Writer-director Anubhav Sinha’s opening shot of a mercilessly beaten woman thrown on a railway track is unambiguous in its intent.

The take-off is like Dhurandhar. As Ustara alias Romeo (Shahid Kapoor) cuts, kills and spills blood all over the place, there’s a peppy ‘Dhak dhak karne laga’ in the background. From a conversation between Jayesh bhai (Nana Patekar), his baap in the gangster business, and the ‘kutiya’ (Shahid), you gather that Romeo is on the run from big bad daddy Jalal (Avinash Tiwary) for murdering his brother. From a spate of energetically executed dances where he breaks into pelvic moves with crude references made to women in the oldest profession in the world, it’s established that Romeo has the swagger of an unremorseful killer-gangster. BTW, ‘Paan ki dukaan’ is catchy.