Review : Shootout at Lokhandwala

[amazon_link id=”B0041AY3UI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : Poor (2.2/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2007
Running time : 2 hours
Director : Apoorva Lakhia
Cast : Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Tushar Kapoor, Amitabh Bachhan, Vivek Oberoi, Dia Mirza, Abhishek Bachhan, Shabbit Ahluwalia, Amrita Singh, Neha Dhupia

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA : BOLLYWOOD STYLE GUN-SLINGING AND The DEATH OF REALISM

I’d heard that the film was based upon the real-life shoot-out incident in Mumbai in 1992, so it was intriguing to see the teaser. It set the stage for something big. Of course I had not accounted for Sanjay Gupta’s taste or Lakhia’s direction, which brings this could-have-been-better film, down to it’s pathetic knees.

Sanjay Dutt, Arbaz Khan and Suni Shetty, non-actors all, portray the valiant threesome in charge of ridding the earth of scoundrels. These are the 3 policemen who are caught in the thick of the shoot-out. Dutt plays ACP Shamsher Khan, the officer-in-charge while Arbaaz as Inspector Javed Sheikh, and Shetty as Kaviraj Patel are his colleagues. Vivek Oberoi plays Maya Dolas, a gangster, stifling as a sub-ordinate to bhai “Dawood Ibrahim”, and desiring to run independent operations. And Tushar Kapoor is Dilip Bua, a gangster of an opposing gang who joins hands with Maya after ensuring his own gang’s demise. Khan, Sheikh and Patel must hunt down Maya and Co. but when the villains take refuge in an apartment in Lokhandwala, ACP Khan must conduct a long-running, daylight battle to nail these goons.

After the shoot-out ACP Khan and his team stand trial, and Bachhan is their lawyer, gruff and dictatorial. The film starts off with an introduction to Khalistani extremism, showing the spread of terrorism down to cities like Mumbai. And while some amount of violence is justified, this movie is just plain trigger-happy ! Lot’s of violence, most of it unnecessary and taking away from the impact of the story. Lakhia in his teaser hints at the real truth, but doesn’t come through on his promise. This film is as tantalizing as a wet rag.

As for the acting, there’s Dutt and his slouchy walk. And we know he can’t act. Same goes for Shetty, minus the slouch. Arbaaz Khan is, and it’s hard to do, actually a worse actor than the previous two. Tusshar Kapoor looks very little like a gangster. Can we ban him from the hindi film industry ? (Hope flickers.) And Vivek Oberoi seen on-screen after a long time, has lost the Midas touch. After fantastic films like Company, Saathiya, and Omkara Oberoi junior curls his lip as Maya. And that’s about all the acting he does.

Dia Mirza plays a reporter who comes out on the scene of the shoot-out and asks all the questions. Too bad she can’t put some energy into it. Amrita Singh as Dolas mother is part psycho, and part passive-aggressive – your pick. The characterization was sorta weird and didn’t even dent the story. Abhishek has a teeny-tiny role as a police officer who’s soon killed by Khalistani terrorists infiltrating Mumbai.

The film purports to be a “different” tale, but it’s more of the stuff we’ve already seen, and it’s worse done. The “bad guys” and mean, menacing, kill people like they’re swatting flies, frequent dance bars. So what’s new ? The policemen are graced by silly nuances, like Javed Sheikh’s diatribe to his son on studying hard, so he can become an engineer and not a police officer like his father, all of which come to nothing. The film in it’s attempt to get at the truth strays far from it. Sanjay Gupta’s style of film-making has always weirded me out, it’s wanna-be-stylish, and in the no man’s land between good and bad. With this one, Gupta land squarely in the it’s-a-stinker category.