Cast:
Neil Mukesh
Zakir Hussain
Dharmendra
Rimi Sen
Director: Sriram Raghavan
===
Johnny Gaddar isn’t a thriller. Actually the title reveals the mystery. A gang of five semi-criminals hatch a plan to make quick money.
The toughest among them travels from Mumbai to Bangalore with two and a half crore in cash. From the onset, we know that Johnny is the gaddar.
But we don’t know if and how he will get away with it. What follows is clever cat and mouse game in which Johnny, through wits and dumb luck, manages to stay just a little ahead of his friends.
Johnny Gaddar isn’t wholesome entertainment either – there’s blood, action, lots of dead bodies and one excruciating torture scene.
The characters are nicely detailed and the craft is polished. The film’s pace flags in the second half but still Sriram bungs in enough twists to keep us hooked.
The actors are all good – I loved Dharmendra playing the elder statesmen criminal. At one point, he says: Its not the age, it’s the mileage. Vinay Pathak, who seems to have become the poster boy of the indie film, is great.
So are Zakir Hussain and Govind Namdeo, who after many years finds the menace he showed in Bandit Queen. Happily, the film’s debutant hero Neil Nitin Mukesh manages to hold his own against these heavyweights.
Neil is strangely opaque but that works perfectly for this film, in which you’re not supposed to know what he’s thinking. His boyishly handsome face makes his criminality more intriguing.
There are of course the ones he spells out: Johnny’s name comes from Johnny Mera Naam and even his scheme to rob his friends is inspired from Amitabh Bachchan’s Parwana.
But what’s more fun are the asides: like Rimmi Sen reading R K Narayan’s Guide, one of Vijay Anand’s greatest movies. There’s a superb Anand moment with a tape recorder.
I recommend that you see Johnny Gaddar. When you get bored, you can always play spot-the-reference.
===
My Star Rating : ***
Neil Mukesh
Zakir Hussain
Dharmendra
Rimi Sen
Director: Sriram Raghavan
===
Johnny Gaddar isn’t a thriller. Actually the title reveals the mystery. A gang of five semi-criminals hatch a plan to make quick money.
The toughest among them travels from Mumbai to Bangalore with two and a half crore in cash. From the onset, we know that Johnny is the gaddar.
But we don’t know if and how he will get away with it. What follows is clever cat and mouse game in which Johnny, through wits and dumb luck, manages to stay just a little ahead of his friends.
Johnny Gaddar isn’t wholesome entertainment either – there’s blood, action, lots of dead bodies and one excruciating torture scene.
The characters are nicely detailed and the craft is polished. The film’s pace flags in the second half but still Sriram bungs in enough twists to keep us hooked.
The actors are all good – I loved Dharmendra playing the elder statesmen criminal. At one point, he says: Its not the age, it’s the mileage. Vinay Pathak, who seems to have become the poster boy of the indie film, is great.
So are Zakir Hussain and Govind Namdeo, who after many years finds the menace he showed in Bandit Queen. Happily, the film’s debutant hero Neil Nitin Mukesh manages to hold his own against these heavyweights.
Neil is strangely opaque but that works perfectly for this film, in which you’re not supposed to know what he’s thinking. His boyishly handsome face makes his criminality more intriguing.
There are of course the ones he spells out: Johnny’s name comes from Johnny Mera Naam and even his scheme to rob his friends is inspired from Amitabh Bachchan’s Parwana.
But what’s more fun are the asides: like Rimmi Sen reading R K Narayan’s Guide, one of Vijay Anand’s greatest movies. There’s a superb Anand moment with a tape recorder.
I recommend that you see Johnny Gaddar. When you get bored, you can always play spot-the-reference.
===
My Star Rating : ***
No comments:
Post a Comment