‘Do the good but your own way, may be legal or illegal’ is the central theme of Atul Sabharwal directed Bollywood flick ‘Aurangzeb’. Historical legend Aurangzeb had this above described policy using which, he crowned the empire, surpassing his three brothers and the film intends to present this notion, where a police family headed by top cop Rishi Kapoor wants to wash out a criminal family headed by Jackie Shroff. He Kidnaps the blue eyed son of the villain and implants his lookalike there, to make his work done to finish up crime and criminals.
Plot – Ajay (Arjun Kapoor) is the son of the real estate developer Yashvardhan (Jackie Shroff) who under the shade of his property empire actually runs a crime world. Well-versed with Yash’s unethical activities, senior inspector Ravikanth (Rishi Kapoor) along with his team including Arya (Prithviraj Sukamaran) and Dev (Sikender Kher) kidnaps Ajay and implants his lookalike Vishal (Arjun Kapoor) in Yash’s empire to get every details and forthcoming planning to clean the crime empire. Yet, Ravikanth too has a hasty dream to be the kingpin by tarnishing Yashvardhan.
Interestingly, after a while it was also revealed that the Ajay and his lookalike are brothers, who got separated long ago, like in old films, ‘Kumb ke mele mein kho Gaye the’. And so the film has another twist. We don’t want to kill your excitement by revealing everything here. Please go and watch the film for once to see the climax.
Review – No doubt the film has a unique script. But length of the film is boring and like many other films this one also suffers from loosely crammed for an hour after the interval. A lot of time has been devoted to establish the characters and this process spoils continuity of the main subject of the story. Also editing of the film is poor. It could be lot better.
Performances – Arjun Kapoor has proved through the balanced performance of his double role in the film that he is the nephew of veteran actor Anil Kapoor, who had exhibited his acting talent from the beginning. The young chap looks promising. The type of character he has been assigned with, merely in his second Bollywood film, is a big risk, but he has executed it efficiently. It is like that of Amitabh Bachchan in Don, which needs a lot of talent to do. Yes, though it is not an outstanding performance but still he is commendable.
Rishi Kapoor is another character in the movie to be watched. If I am not telling big, Rishi has established a niche for himself in this second innings of his career. In the yester years, when he was becoming the hero, was the first innings and now his roles in this flick or in Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Agneepath’ are commendable, which he had not exhibited throughout the long span of his career in the first innings, though he had acted in versatile characters in a number of films then.
Jackie Shroff should equally be praised for his wonderful role and his ‘Hulchul’ like look. He soulfully essays role of a fallen hero, who was at the zenith of his power at the beginning.
Prithviraj needs to work on his Southern accent, but besides that he is very good. No doubt he is very good in acting.
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Amrita Singh who is back on silver screen after a while manages to stay captivating all through.
Debutant Sasheh Agha, daughter of Salma Agha is all skin show and no acting prowess. You can put her in the group of Mandakini in ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’ or Zeba Bakhtiar in ‘Henna’, who reached to the zenith of their skin show from the very beginning of their career and subsequently lost the whole career. We recall her mother’s perfection of essaying the top emotional scenes in ‘Nikah’ and feel discouraged that she has not inherited even a small fraction of that. Let us see, how much she can go.
Directorial Pros & Cons – Atul Sabharwal has failed to do justice to the powerful story he had in the hand. With a yummy premise like that, he barely manages to serve us anything beyond poorness. In the process of establishing many things, he forgets the audience.
Music of Amartya Rahut and Vipin Mishra does not put any great impression in the mind of the audience to take it to the home. And finally the long and loose (at several places) two and a half hour time slot is embarrassing.
Verdict – Performances of Arjun Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff provides a boost to the watching while the flick misses out some directorial magic. The strong script could not be filmized.
Watch or Not – The film should be watched at least once. And if you are a fan of the greenhorn Ishaqzade Arjun Kapoor, you’ll love to see him on the screen.
Director: Atul Sabharwal
Star cast: Rishi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Arjun Kapoor, Sasheh Aagha, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Amrita Singh, Deepti Naval, Tanve Azmi, Sikandar Berry
TNI Rating – ** and Half (2 & ½) Stars out of 5.