Starring: Salman Khan, Disha Patani, Jackie Shroff and Randeep Hooda
Director: Prabhu Deva
A Salman Khan film, that too timed as an Eid release, comes pre-packaged with certain set Bollywood masala ingredients and this latest offering from the popular “Bhai” of the Indian film industry certainly fits that bill.
Radhe (Khan) is a hot-headed, no-nonsense cop in the Mumbai police force who is infamous for doing things his own unconventional way. While faced with suspension and warnings from bosses for his violent tendencies in pursuit of the baddies, he has an impeccable reputation of getting the job done. And, the job he is brought in to get done this time is to clean up the streets of Mumbai from the debilitating narcotics trade that is turning young high-achieving students of the city into hapless addicts.
At the heart of this dirty drug smuggling mafia is the unscrupulous and vicious Rana (Hooda) and Radhe’s seniors have no choice but to revoke his suspension to take charge of this gruesome mission. On the way, a chance encounter with the beguiling Diya (Patani) and her distaste for police work as a result of her workaholic brother (Shroff) result in Radhe having to take on a double act as an aspiring model.
Will this principled cop and fake model achieve both his goals – winning over Diya’s affections and tackling druglord Rana and his henchmen to free Mumbai of the scourge of drugs?
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The answer to both those questions is hardly a mystery when it comes to a Salman Khan vanity vehicle of this nature. But even for the audience mentally prepared for the all-too-predictable turns in the plot, this film manages to set a whole new level of bizarre. There is very little attention, if any, given to a narrative structure that would make sense from start to finish. Patani is reduced to a mere sidekick, ready for a quick song and dance when the wham-bam fighting sequences and gunfights get completely out of hand.
Shroff has been clearly thrown into the mix for some light relief but his inane attempts at humour fall completely flat. Hooda seems to have taken some recent lessons in how to ham it up for the camera and plays his villainous character closer to the funny rather than scary spectrum.
Prabhu Deva’s directorial venture, a nod to the Korean flick ‘The Outlaws’, has one thing that is close to perfection and that is the dancer’s overview of the choreographed sequences in the film. It will no doubt leave the audience feeling like he should really stick to what he is truly good at – dancing.
All that said and done, any Salman Khan fans starved of his brand of glass-shattering and bone-crushing Bollywood cinema uninhibited by the requirements of a cohesive plotline have a treat in store. His piece to camera with the words “Eid Mubarak” at the start of the film will transport fans to the old days of packed cinema halls reverberating with whistles at Salman Bhai’s every cheesy line and move.
*iGlobal Review Series