Random DVD Round-Up 3 - SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA is a sensationalist movie made by writer-director Apoorva Lakhia and loosely based on the real-life stand-off between Mumbai coppers and mafiosi in 1991. The film is structured as an extended oddly sepia-tinted flashback. An apparently antagonistic lawyer (Amitabh Bachchan) interrogates the police chiefs that sanctioned the bloody shoot-out. Sanjay Datt and Sunil Shetty play the rozzers justifying their brutal actions. Vivek Oberoi plays the head of the Mumbai mob, eager to become independent of his Dubai-based boss. The first part of the movie shows cops and gangsters face off against each other and fleshes out their failed marriages and relationships. The second half focuses on the actual shoot out and its ramifications. Any attempt to craft a serious character study is undercut by the lurid shooting style and glorification of the gangster lifestyle in the big song and dance numbers. Worse still, the big item number is a complete rip-off of "Beedi" from OMKARA - down to the item girl's outfit to Vivek's dance style to the actual melody! As for political message - the movie may start out as critical of collateral damage but at the same time it's depiction of violence is pure exploitation cinema. (And let's not even get started on the fascist overtones of Amitabh's closing speech).

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA was released in Spring 2007 and is available on DVD.

KRAZZY 4 - limp Bollywood caper flick

Jaideep Sen's directorial debut is a lacklustre, snail-paced caper movie called KRAZZY 4. The incomparable Irrfan Khan (THE NAMESAKE) and popular comic actor Arshard Warsi lead a pack of mental patients let loose on the streets of Mumbai when their kind-hearted psychiatrist (Juhi Chawla) is kidnapped. When the movie breaks for the Interval, our Krazzy heroes have unwittingly uncovered a nasty plot involving political corruption.

The movie plays as a poorly written, flabby caper movie, with half-hearted attempts at physical humour and romance in the first half, and a thin thriller plot in the second half. Arshad Warsi, Irrfhan Khan and the rest of the cast are not given a chance to shine. In addition, I fear that the only thing anyone will remember about the score will be the legal kerfuffles surrounding its authorship. Rakhi Sawant is in typically sleazy form in a very lacklustre item number in the first half; the promise of some high wattage cameos will no doubt keep fans in the cinema for the item number in the second half.

The only thing I can really find to praise in KRAZZY 4 is the sporadic attempt at social critique. The film is mostly set on India's Independence Day and the screenwriter has a lot of digs at the corruption and disrespect for public property that is endemic to Indian society.

KRAZZY 4 is on release in India and the UK.