Star cast: Ram Charan Teja, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt, Mahie Gill, Prakash
Raj, Atul Kulkarni.
Director: Apoorva Lakhia
What's Good: Based on the old Zanjeer, the film ultimately is an
undeniably novel
concept.
What's Bad: Needless tinkering of a story that was better left untouched.
Watch or Not?: I am not really a fan of remakes, but this clearly ranks amongst
the shabbier ones I've encountered.
Based on Prakash Mehra's vintage classic
that marked the advent of Big B as
Bollywood's angry young man, Zanjeer
even with its share of spiffy action clearly misses the raw flair that
Salim-Javed's
touch had done to the screenplay. All the
crashing thrills and smashing stunts
simply couldn't save this film from being
a flat, tiresome and sore bore.
Watch it only if you are inclined to revisit
the stories of 70s when commercial
cinema wasn't synonymous with making
similarly lazy films with minimal creative
offering!
User Rating:
An aggressive, honest and uptight police
officer has been transferred constantly
for his brash ways of mending arrogant
goons. On Landing up in Mumbai, officer
Vijay Khanna (Ram Charan Teja) is given
a significant case. The only eye witness of the murder case is Mala (Priyanka
Chopra), who is an NRI attending a
friend's wedding in the city. Maya helps
the police in identifying the miscreants.
When the mafia finds out they try to kill
her. Vijay saves her from them and makes her stay at his place to keep her
safe.
While the two slowly fall in love, the case
moves speedily at uncovering the most
established businessmen being involved
in an oil racket of smuggling petrol and
diesel illegally. With help of aides like
Sher Khan (Sanjay Dutt), Vijay takes on the mighty mafia Godmen. Little did he
know that this war will end in soothing
the old bruises of his parents' murder
and much more!
Zanjeer Review: Script Analysis
Bollywood is functioning robotically with
a constant eye on the box office. Using
variations of the same recipes that rake
moolah, most films follow a set pattern
or a schema. It's either corny gags or
bang-boom action that producers use relentlessly to earn profits of their
investment. Zanjeer, is yet another example of how little regard our film
industry has for good cinema or cinema
at all for that matter. Constantly prodding
older scripts, to squeeze out the film's
natural zest is a tendency young
filmmakers are conveniently resorting to. While it is easier to
believe this is out of
reverence or nostalgia, I presume it is
more a result of sheer laziness at
ideating anything remotely new.
We all are familiar with the story of
Zanjeer. But the disappointing screenplay
has not an ounce of energy to spare for
its audiences this time. The story takes
up the same pace as the earlier edition
but cannot keep up to the overbearing plot of the former. Structured with gusto
and meticulous detailing, parts of the
script have deliberately been maintained,
including a few memorable dialogues.
The story works on a three facet schema
involving revenge of a bruised child who
grows up to an honest police office
fighting mafia king, the romance angle
and Sher Khan's undying loyalty for Vijay.
There is an additional plot added in the film where Vijay receives
incessant help
from a crime reporter. The primary flaw
with the film is that it tackles issues with
too much ease. The audiences are almost
expected to assume parts of the story
which highlights the gaps in the screenplay writing. The scene where
Vijay and Mala profess their love is
sudden because there is no romantic link
shown before their stark intimate scene.
Also it is quite ridiculous that the ACP
barges into Sher Khan's garage without any offensive initiation from Khan. The
very next scene we are told that Khan has
voluntarily shut down his illegal
businesses. Given that we know what
happens in the original film, this is an
instance of poor scripting.
Not to mention that the camaraderie
between Mona and Teja is outrageous!
Our villain is a Viagra popping,
shamelessly purring buffoon who has a
wonderful comic sense. Sadly, he wasn't
supposed to be funny. Some awfully sexist and grotesque jokes might shock
you to the core, but yes neat films are an
obsolete feature in Bollywood these days,
so quit expecting.
Dialogues like 'Sher Khan beimaani ka
dhanda bhi imaandari se karta hai' and
'Yeh Police station hai, tere baap ka ghar
nahi' are always good to hear but overall,
the dialogues are dismal disasters and in
no way pays homage to Salim-Javed's gritty, memorable one-liners. The film's
essence is awfully stale with its
strongholds getting overshadowed by
flimsy screenplay whose fracture leaves
us scared with a yawn-some cinematic
experience.
Zanjeer Review: Star Performances
Ram Charan Teja with his robotic
expressions does well in flaunting his
penchant at robust action. He doesn't
romance too well and that's fine. In
times when gravity defying stunt based
films are dominating, Teja can smoothly fit into the likes of Dabanggs and more.
Priyanka Chopra leaves me sad as the
actress settles as a mere arm candy for
an actor. She is a storehouse of caliber
and it's a shame she is letting all that
remain unused.
Sanjay Dutt is the only eye catching
casting as he fits quite well as Sher Khan.
But there is a very little screen space for
him to enhance his character any further.
After working in every possible masala
entertainer in the last few years, Prakash
Raj has created his own niche at villain's
buffoonery. Indeed a master at the same,
the actor again is letting his talent
dissipate into nothingness by compromising for roles like such.
Atul Kulkarni is great as the aggressive
crime reporter who takes on a duel with
the ACP initially, only to realize his worth
later. An actor par excellence, he is great
in his role.
Mahie Gill should watch her film Dev D
again as she is clearly suffering from
amnesia. There can be no other reason
why she agreed to be Mona! The tinge of
derogation is deliberate!
Zanjeer Review: Direction, Editing and
Music
Apoorva Lakhia's direction is sleek and
packaged swankily but has an
unforgivably tedious and long film which
cannot evoke any applause despite the
evident toiling. Made on every possible
staple pedigree available for use currently, the film has an upright hero, a
satanic villain, a naïve heroine in love,
thunderous action and sleazy item
number ala Munni and Sheila. He is
careful in referring vehemently to the
original, but loses himself in the myriad plots and sub plots he weaves. Vijay
destroys the oil mafia's most crucial
point with so much ease that it is
surprising how Lakhia does the tricky
bits almost with inexperience. The
editing is sketchy which treads into tiresome length. The music is
extraordinarily ordinary and only the
background score with the tunes of
Raghupati Raghav is hummable.
Zanjeer Review: The Last Word
Zanjeer is a typical product of prevalent
market tricks that ensure numbers. A
sloppy mishmash of slackened writing,
half baked execution and slumber
incurring editing, the desperate attempts
of packing a few extra scenes of head banging action doesn't quite help.
Lacking the spirit and marvel of Zanjeer
that I went in looking, the reason why I
both survived and detested the film was
the same. I am going with a 2/5 with this
desperate slog which goes on to prove that there indeed is a dearth of fresh
stories in Bollywood.
Share with us your experience of
watching Zanjeer.
