Milan Luthria had the right ideas but it looks as if he went about the task of executing them with half a heart.Early on Badshaaho had me wondering if it was another dig at the Gandhi dynasty under the auspices of the current government and i doubt if the film would’ve seen light of day without creating a ruckus if the Congress was in power.Hope i haven’t spoken too soon, given the fact that in power or not, politicians always find a way to have their voices heard.But that would only help this movie and it needs all the help that it can get to stay afloat, i think.I was also put off by the way in which the makers cozied up to the royalty initially but to be fair, they did try to make amends towards the end but by then i was too disinterested to even care.
Ajay Devgan speaks entirely in one liners and Emraan Hashmi keeps him company, only he keeps repeating his one liners in this heist movie from Bollywood because in all probability the writer got bored with Hashmis character to the point where he stopped developing it half way through, not that any of the other characters looked like any real thinking went into them either.Vidyut Jamwal plays an army man who prefers to travel in trains in his boxers, i guess the Rajasthan sun does that to people.Ileana tries earnestly to do justice to her role but thanks to some uninspired writing she doesn’t end up with outsized shoes to fill, considering the enigmatic life history of the person whom her character is based on and Esha Gupta’s presence is little more than a tribute to the vamps of 70s Bollywood films.Even Sunny Leone looked bored in the customary “item song”.The plot and the premise were promising but the makers lets the viewers down with some really lazy filmmaking.
All the greatest heist films from The Sting to Oceans Eleven to Bollywood’s own Special 26 have relied on the ingenuity of the plot hatched by the protagonists to keep the viewers interested but Badhsaaho obviously doesn’t belong to that school of thought.Most of the crucial scenes play out like a bad act by an amateur magician, to the point that it almost insults the viewer’s intelligence.The film did make me curious though and kindled my interest in the historical incidents against the backdrop of which the story unfolds.The movie treads carelessly upon topics which had tremendous potential like the Privy Purse Abolition, the Emergency and the political vendetta that the powers that be unleashed on their adversaries during that dark phase in the country’s history. I guess its a coincidence that the movie was released at a time when the treasures of the royal family down here in Kerala are again in the news.
gopakumarpurushothaman 