Let me start with a confession, this isn’t a regular movie review that I’m attempting. By now I think quite a few people have already done that (including on PFC) and what I’m trying now is to share my feelings about the movie. So here I go on this personal account of how I look at Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai(OUATIM from hereon).
Let me start off by asking all of you a question- what was your expectation (if any) when you first heard of the movie or started seeing the promos? In my case I would say that the movie had me reasonably excited. And let me explain why. To start with I have admired Milan Luthria’s work and felt that given the right concept and the right cast in hand, he can pull off an entertaining film. So for everyChori Chori and a Hattrick, he also has a Kachche Daage or a Taxi No.9211 to talk about.
And then the subject itself appealed to me- the tale of two of the so called powerful men in the city once known as Bombay- Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim. I somehow had the feeling that this will not be a movie in the RGV style of gangster movies like a Satya or a Company. Rather I had the feeling that this would be a total retro film with the movie turning to recreate the pulp entertainers of the 70’s & the 80’s. Unlike some of the others I was also looking forward to seeingAjay Devgan and Emran Hashmi in the characters modeled on Haji Mastan and Dawood respectively.
While Ajay has proven on numerous occasions that he is a wonderful actor and has done a gangster movie like Company, Emran looked like the dark horse to me. I have unlike a lot of people always felt that there existed a decent actor within the person who is known more as a ‘serial kisser’. This opinion has been proved right in his recent films like Awarapan, Jannat & Tum Mile. Also when I started hearing the songs of the movie, I was quite pleased withPritam’s work.
So with all these things in mind I looked forward to the release of the film and kept my date with the film on the Friday it released (July 30th). Deliberating upon the film now I’m trying to think of how the movie shaped up to my expectations and I realize that overall it was a fairly credible effort from Milan Luthria and his team. I thought the retro look of the 70’s and the 80’s were well captured and I would certainly give credit to Nitin Desai’s art direction and the cinematography of Aseem Mishra for the same.
OUATIM tries hard not to fall into the dark realistic gangster movie mould seen in so many movies like Satya,Company,Vaastav and so many more. Here in I believe is a victory of sorts for the movie. If the movie had been shown as another dark, realistic RGV kind of underworld movie, this would have been just another movie in that genre. And we would all be saying- “oh!no, not another gangster movie”. For me the music of Pritam in terms of both the songs and the BGM worked perfectly with the mood of the movie. Be it a romantic Pee Loon or Tum Jo Aaye or the totally retro Parda, the songs make a definite impact.
Which takes me now to the cast and their performances. Both the heroinesKangna Ranaut and Prachi Desai were decent but then their roles didn’t have much scope. But I have no complaints here as all along it was touted as a saga of two men and that being the case how much of depth do we hope for female characters in such films. For that matter there’s hardly any gangster/underworld film ( Anurag Basu’s Gangster : A Love Story is a remarkable exception ) which plays a lot of thrust on female character development. Ajay Devgan-the star was very much visible throughout the film and right from his look (suave whites throughout the film) to his swagger and the dialogue delivery ( kudos to Rajat Arora the writer ), everything had style in it.
Ah!coming to Emran Hashmi, what do I say? While he was not quite the show stealer, he certainly did pull off the character of Shoaib pretty well. Unfortunately he does not get much scope in the 1st act of the film and it’s only towards the end of the 2nd act that he really gets going. Randeep Hooda as the cop was earnest but his narration of the flow of events was looking very unclear in terms of the way it was happening. None of the other characters anyway made any strong impact.
Having said all this I certainly don’t want to give out the impression that it’s a great film or a perfect film. Far from it , but it’s a film which has fulfilled my expectations to a great extent. The climax appeared too sudden and abrupt and thus hampered the flow of the film. While I don’t have any issue with the way the story ends, I still feel there should have been a stronger (and a lengthier) pre-climax which leads to the climax.
For all those who have various complaints ( some people have an issue with the dialogue mannerism in this film, some people feel it wasn’t too gritty and realistic, some people feel it was an over the top film )with the film I do have something to say.Ultimately what did you expect from this film? If you weren’t expecting a pulp entertainer which was modeled on the films of the 70’s and the 80’s and bringing out the retro look intact then I guess you went in to watch the wrong movie. For the others the movie is a fairly engaging watch. As I write this I realize that the movie is slowly picking up at the box office and is gathering a favorable response from the audience. Lets just wait and see how much this rewind journey of ‘Mumbaai’ gets appreciated by the masses.
Originally published in PFC- http://passionforcinema.com/once-upon-a-time-in-mumbaai-movie-review-the-other-viewpoint/
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