Genre : Suspense/Action/Thriller
Year : 2009
Running time : 2 hours 30 minutes
Director : Soham Shah
Cast : Imran Khan, Shruti Hassan, Danny Denzongpa, Sunjay Dutt, Ram Kishen, Mithun Chakraborty, Chitrashi Rawat
Kid rating : PG-13
LUCK : THE 80s DONE WRONG !
I am so glad that Hindi cinema has changed for the better. Where once the old formulas of romance and dhishum-dhishum ruled we now have films which take on un-conventional (for desi audiences) subjects, like murder mysteries (Manorama six feet under), personal angst-causing tales (Main meri patni aur woh) or even thoughtful romances (the recent Love Aaj Kal). So, it’s kind of a major let-down to see a film like “Luck”, with it’s almost caricaturish villains, cryptic, loaded dialogues (do real villains really have the time to compose talk like that ?) and odes to mindless (and ridiculous) violence.
The film’s plot centers on “lucky” people. Almost all the main characters are lucky people, a fact noticed by “luck-trader” Musa bhai (Sanjay Dutt). Ram Mehra (Imran), Ayesha (Shruti), ex-jailbird Raghav (Ram Kisshen), Major Jabbar Pratap Singh (Mithun), Short-cut (Chitrashi Rawat) are considered lucky and happen to be desperate for money. Musa along with his henchman Lakhan Tamang (Danny) rounds up these people and persuades them to enter a life-and-death game with a high payout. If they survive they get the loot. If they don’t – well, dead men don’t talk, much less ask for their share.
There are lots of things wrong with this film. Firstly, the casting – Imran Khan is the spitting image of Mr. Goody-2-Shoes, so why cast him as an aggresive, possibly negative character ? He might work (and I’m just speculating here) in a film like “Johnny Gaddar” or in a “Khosla ka Ghosla“, but in a movie where there is no dearth of menacing faces, he doesn’t stand a chance. Then there is Chitrashi Rawat, who plays a camel jockey. Now I’ve got to hand it to her, for her short stature she has a large swagger. She’s a decent actress, but where’s the personality ? Ram Kisshen is paisa-vasool though; his sneering I-know-something-you-don’t attitude works quite well here. Sunjay Dutt is in his “bhai”-wala avatar, so it’s all dark glasses and glowering glances from him. And Danny is Danny and Mithun is Mithun – predictable and boring.
And now for the debutante of the week (or not) Shruti Hassan, Kamal Hassan and Sarika’s daughter. I was pretty curious to see her in action, because (and I’m probably dating myself here) I remember reading about Kamal Hassan’s controversial break-up with first wife Vani Ganapathy – Vani castigated the affair in print (Filmfare et. al.), slapped Sarika, the works. One is therefore naturally curious to see how the product of that union turned out. Shruti looks a lot like her mother, tall, graceful, slim and svelte and dances well. She can’t emote though, which if she’s inherited her acting genes from her parents, might improve with time.
“Luck” tries to be a “thriller”, but also has the obligatory romance-dance routines. There is also the “desi” emotional pull – Ram has a Maa to please, and army-man Singh has an ailing wife. This is a mish-mash of all things masala, with nothing done right. Directorial focus is a thing unknown here and the script, merely a tool to thread together the item numbers with the inane stunts. All that said, if I had to choose the worst thing about this movie, I’d say the dialogues were atrocious – and Danny had the major chunk of the worst ones. The songs might be the only silver lining – and it’s a mighty thin lining at that; I quite liked “Jee Le”.
The director Soham Shah also directed the very forgettable “Kaal“, so it’s not like I was expecting quality here, but “Luck” turned out to be ghastlier than expected. It starts off OK, but morphs pretty quickly into a C-grade film. Verdict : Keep away.
Kid-wise : This earns itself a PG-13 rating, for the violence and glorification of the “bhai”/criminal types.
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