DIRECTOR: Ankush Bhatt
CAST: Prashant Narayanan, Gautam Sharma, Kay Kay Menon, Pawan Malhotra, Deepti Naval, Piyush Mishra, Shilpa Shukla, Jackie Shroff
Rating: **
This film is a case of an interesting cast made to do familiar things in hoodlum flicks: small-time cons struggling to extinguish their deadbeat existence with the help of betrayal and murder. Tabrez (Sharma) and Fateh (Narayanan) grow up in the lanes of Bhindi Bazaar, overflowing with refuse and human waste, under the tutelage of the ruthless Mamu (Malhotra), protecting their turf from Pandey (Mishra) and his assorted minions.
The film opens with Tabrez being invited to a game of chess in the swish Malabar Hill apartment of Shroff (Menon), and the action cuts back and forth between the game being played inside and outside. The usual stuff comes trotting out: the camaraderie and the squabbling between the slum kids, the rivalry between gang bosses, sly women, and a series of back-stabbing incidents.
Using chess as a metaphor is a good trick but the relentlessness with which it is played out becomes quickly tiresome. The ensemble cast is efficient but looks as if it wandered off a Ram Gopal Varma slum-scrum. Narayanan and Sharma are made to pal up on the top of a half-constructed building, very Slumdog style. Kay Kay is given a thin moustache, a thinner smile, and not much else. The only surprise inclusion is Deepti Naval as the dependable Pawan Malhotra’s screen wife: you only wish she had more to do.
