O'Romeo

You can see what Vishal Bhardwaj is trying to do with O’Romeo. The film is inspired by a chapter from journalist Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai (Gangubai Kathiawadi was another). The chapter delves into the life of Sapna Didi, a damsel in distress who mutates into a femme fatale in her quest to avenge the murder of her husband and take down dreaded don Dawood Ibrahim. She takes the help of Hussain Ustara, a Dawood rival and sharpshooter, to disrupt the D-Company empire and aid her mission. The mighty Bhardwaj takes these factoids and runs with them; he also sprints, strolls, jogs and trips with them. The very loose adaptation means that O’Romeo — as per its title — reframes the Sapna Didi story as an Ustara tragedy. Keeping with the times, it is centered on a cold-blooded womanizer who is tamed by love. His masculinity finds purpose; even his violence becomes an ode to her. He doesn’t gatecrash her narrative; she supplies his. He is both man-child and male saviour at once. Her wish is his demand. Where have we heard that before?

अक्खा बॉलीवुड जब शाहिद कपूर में बस एक रोमांटिक चॉकलेटी हीरो देख रहा था, डायरेक्टर विशाल भारद्वाज ने उनमें अपने ‘कमीने’ को खोज निकाला था। फिर 2014 में भी विशाल भारद्वाज के ‘हैदर’ बनकर शाहिद ने एक्टर के रूप में अपनी असीम रेंज दिखाई। अब दोनों की यह जोड़ी फिल्म ‘ओ रोमियो’ लेकर आई है और इस बार भी विशाल ने शाहिद को ‘उस्तरा’ बनाकर धारदार एक्टिंग करवाई है।

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.

There are, broadly speaking, two types of Vishal Bhardwaj films. The first kind unfold with control and fixity of purpose: Maqbool, Omkara, Haider. The second, films like Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola, Kaminey, Rangoon, are looser, zanier, Bhardwaj like a witch gleefully tossing arcane ingredients into a cauldron. The first category has all his classics, and would seem the essential one to understand the director. Yet, the latter is where I think we see the full flowering of Bhardwaj’s weirdness and breadth of interests.