Movie: Shootout at Wadala
Director: Sanjay Gupta
Cast: John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Tushhar Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpai, Sonu Sood and Ronit Roy with Mahesh Manjrekar
Rating: **
My intention is not to criticize filmmaker Sanjay Gupta through this post. I only want to remind us all how far we have come in the name of celebrating mediocrity. Even though we end up making a gem of a film once in a while, we are not ashamed to make hundreds of bad, really bad films that we take pride in making at the first place. Let’s make entertaining film with four fights, three songs and some melodrama, but let’s make it sensible.
Shootout at Wadala (SAW) is a film about the first encounter involving Bombay police and the most feared Hindu gangster Many Surve aka John Abraham. Initially, the film takes us through the back story of Manya Surve, who once was an intelligent, hardworking and bright young student who went on to score distinction (78%) in his college final exams.
Sadly, he is busted for a murder he never committed and is thrown in the prison with his brother, a local rowdy named Bhargav Surve. When he gets out, he turns into the most feared gangster in the history of Mumbai underworld. What follows is a pucca revenge drama with adequate amount of Bollywood masala such as item numbers, lots of action, funny but razor sharp dialogues and couple of extremely intimate scenes.
This is a great Bollywood story if told with maturity, but our dearest Sanjay Gupta makes it unbearable with flawed presentation. It’s also told to us that the film is partly based on true events while the rest has been fictionalized for entertainment purposes.
Here’s what I found stupid about the film
John is a human being too – For a minute, I thought Sanjay Gupta had plans to make Indian version of “Man of Steel” with John. Yes, you heard me right because there is a scene in the film where we are shown that John has endured 10 plus bullets shot at point blank range and yet survived for nearly two hours to narrate his side of the story. I haven’t seen anything dumber than this in the recent past, especially in Bollywood. You call this entertainment? I call it just another way of hero-worshipping and celebrating mediocrity.
Had the police shot him in the knees, hands or even legs, I could understand that it’s slightly possible to stay alive. However, he is shot in the neck, stomach, shoulder and so many others places that the option of living is ruled out completely.
Please, get a cab – It doesn’t take John minutes to start his own gang and loot a bank. With the money, he buys himself an adda and a Jeep, in which he roams the city at all times. However, when one of his close aids is being beaten to pulp by Sonu Sood, our hero instead of driving in his own vehicle, decides to run all the way shirtless. Why in the hell would you run when you know driving will take you to your destination faster? Having run halfway he then decides to hijack a bus and drive faster to save his friend. If you want John to flaunt his six packs, do it in a fight scene but not at the cost of almost killing another character.
Why all the yelling? – We understand that you play a revenge-seeking character, but what is the need to shout in most scenes. Take other characters in films such as Sarkar or even Gangs of Wasseypur. There were revenge-seeking characters in these films too but they didn’t go around shouting. Imagine how stupid it would’ve been had Big B shouted when his son in Sarkar Raj gets killed. These are the small things that differentiate a bad film from a good film.
Overdose of Sherlock Holmes – When will you stop with the obsession over Sherlock Holmes style slow-motion fight sequences? We have a habit of going overboard every now and then, and here is a classic example of it. The slow-motion fight sequences turn so annoying after a point in the film that you wish you had not watched it at the first place. The climax shootout is so Sherlock Holmes that you can’t stop laughing. The only difference in this scene was the characters and the era.
There are so many things that make SAW not just a bad film, but unwatchable. If there is one thing worth raving about in the film then it definitely has to be the dialogues. While some may find these dialogues funny but with the intensity with which characters like Anil Kapoor and John mouth it, makes it even more engaging to watch.
I have no complaints about the performance because almost every single one of them did a neat job. John may have seemed little artificial in some scenes, but he was good mostly. I understand how much of hard work goes into every film, but if you’re slogging your butt then you may as well do a good job in giving an impeccable output.
