Rating : Average (3/5)
Genre : Drama/Action
Year : 2009
Running time : 2 hours 10 minutes
Director : Ashu Trikha
Cast : Sohum Shah, Om Puri, Sushant Singh, Govind Namdeo, Tinu Anand, Mithun Chakraborty, Urvashi Sharma, Shakti Kapoor
Kid rating : PG13
BAABARR : OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLE !
Gangster movies first came to be noticed with Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda (1989). Satya which came in 1998 was the 90s version of the gangster saga. Urmila Matondkar made a beautiful foil for Chakravarty’s earnest gangster, and the tight story and screenplay held me engrossed for those couple of hours. Then came Vaastav, Company, Sehar and a whole host of films which gave this genre some respectability.
And in 2009 we have Baabarr a gangster film which left me unmoved, and I must admit a little bored. Baabar depicts grass-roots growth of crime – how a boy surrounded by violence grows up to be a gangster. You’d think this would be an interesting story to tell and see, but the director, the script-writer and the weak screenplay manage to project the protagonist as an unsympathetic psycho with anger issues.
Baabarr is a little boy who is privy to his family’s fights with other local thugs. His brothers, the eldest of whom is played by Shakti Kapoor, retaliate by producing home-made guns and fighting bloodshed with bloodshed. Baabarr, then a 12 year old decides to assist his brothers by picking up a gun and killing a man. From then on, it’s a downward spiral, with Baabarr growing up to become a thuggish lout, known for his anger, and his obstinate and trigger-happy ways.
The government decides to reign in criminal activities in the area, by bringing in encounter specialist Dwivedi (Mithun Chakraborty). Dwivedi is assisted by his second-in-command Inspector (Om Puri), who has his own fish to fry, in the midst of all this. The rest of the film delineates altercations between the cop and the gangster, with an offbeat ending.
The leading man is newcomer Sohum Shah, although why he is in the lead is quite the question. Sohum cannot act and does not have the screen presence to carry off a persona such as Baabar’s. Besides those failings, the screenplay and story do not help much. The way Baabar’s introduction to crime has been depicted make you think the director’s taken the easy way out. Baabarr as a boy, is cold and emotionless, someone who might have been better of a in a shrink’s office, than fighting it out on the streets. And the “sympathy” factor which normally kicks in, in gangster movies comes from the fact that the hero can redeem himself in our eyes, by possessing at least some admirable qualities, such as integrity, a sense of fair-play, or even kindness to those weaker than him. Baabarr, unfortunately possess none of those.
This film has a number of very good character actors like Govind Namdeo, Sushant Singh and Tinnu Anand, but they are used poorly, and can do little in the face of weak scripting and character development. Mithun, as Dwivedi, is still Mithun, with his characteristic swagger and style of dialogue delivery, and it is a pity to see a talent who started off in the most excellent Mrigaya come to this.
Besides the generally poor quality of the film, there’s also the fact that everything we see here has been done before and done better. There is no new element to capture our imagination, as the film offers the same old “wanna-be-gritty-crime-thriller”, albeit in more tawdry garb. For it’s casual, trigger-happy violence, and the glorification of a bhai type this film earns itself a PG-13 rating.
Baabarr is quite a disappointment; this one can be lived without.
