First things first! This week’s release ‘Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbaai Dobaara’ (Yes; that is how it is spelt, reaffirming Producer Ekta Kapoor’s belief and fascination for letters and superstitions) is *not* a gangster film. It is a love story between three people – a mentor, his protégé and a woman. Having said that, let me add here that if you thought the trailers were silly (I thought so and even then, I was expecting quite a lot), the movie is way more sillier. The prequel wasn’t a great movie but the script and the good performances by Ajay Devgan and Emraan Hashmi had taken it to a certain level. To cash in on the success of the original, the same team brings you this piece of work and you expect the magic to be recreated. Alas!
OUATIMD starts off where the prequel ended. Well… almost! Now that Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgan) is no more, Shoiab (Akshay Kumar enacting Emraan Hashmi’s role in the prequel) rules Mumbai. He still has Mumtaz (Sonali Bendre in a cameo playing Prachi Desai’s role) with him but loves to be with other women at the same time. A kid catches his attention one day and he mentors him for a dozen years. The kid, Aslam (Imran Khan) grows up to be one of the Don’s most trusted confidantes. All hell breaks loose when both of them fall for the same woman (Sonakshi Sinha).
Director Milan Luthria (‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai’, ‘The Dirty Picture’ among his successful movies) recreates the retro era once again quite well and has an eye for detail. But he is very terribly (understatement!) let down by one of the silliest and poorest scripts of recent times. The first half moves at a snail’s pace focusing on the triangular love story, gets a little better post-interval but never really picks up.
Pritam’s music isn’t good. Dialogues are the saving grace.
Akshay Kumar is in form. His fans are going to love him in this new avatar. He plays the ‘villain’ (as he calls himself) with a certain charm that is bound to be greeted with some claps and whistles; add to that, some cool dialogues mouthed by him. At one point of time, he says “Khiladi tha… ab poora khel hoo”! Dialogues like this will bring the house down. Though it must be said here that for most part of the movie, he flaunts a pair of sunglasses and you have to decide whether he acted or sleepwalked through his role. Imran Khan is completely miscast and even if he wasn’t, I doubt he would have been better. At a time when his contemporaries are getting better with each movie (one already having two solo movies which crossed 100 cr plus), Imran seems to be taking it too easily. This is his worst performance so far. Not a single expression works and he is pretty stiff. Sonakshi Sinha gave us that gem of a mesmerizing performance about a month and a half back in the masterpiece ‘Lootera’ (my pick of the year so far which bombed at the Box-Office). She is back at doing what she does – playing a meaningless stupid character in a big film.
Watch it or not: Strictly for Akshay Kumar fans. Others will not miss anything if they give this one a miss.
At the Box-Office: Reviews and word-of-mouth will range from poor to average but OUATIMD will ride on the star power of Akshay Kumar. It might as well cross 100 cr but will face tremendous competition from last week’s release – ‘Chennai Express’ (renamed ‘Record Express’ by its super happy distributors and exhibitors). As it is, OUATIMD has been allotted limited screens because of the huge success story of CE. However, it will open well and has the Independence Day weekend where it has a chance to sustain. CE will still remain the preferred choice of the audience.
My Rating: I’m going with 1.5 plus an extra half for the sheer ability of Akshay Kumar to make you bear this one.
My Verdict
My Rating
Once upon a time in Mumbai... Dons must have fought over petty issues but definitely not so silly ones! OUATIMD doesn’t just pale in comparison to the prequel; it makes a mockery of it.
