Action entertainer, Bullett
Raja hits the theatres tomorrow on Friday, November 29, 2013. Directed by
Tigmanshu Dhulia, the movie stars Saif Ali Khan in the title role. This action
packed movie features Sonakshi Sinha as the leading lady. Apart from Saif and
Sonakshi, the film also features Jimmy Shergil, Vidyuth Jamwal, Chunkey Pandey,
Gulshan Grover, Ravi Kishan and Raj Babbar
The story in the first half
of Bullett Raja is centered around two friends tied at the hip – Raja Mishra
(Saif Ali Khan) and Rudra. Their friendship and bond goes back a long way and
they engage in unlawful and (sometimes) lawful activities together. An
influential politician (Raj Babbar) catches hold of them to use them as,
basically, his henchmen. The story takes a twist when Rudra is eliminated by a
rival gang and Raja goes in search of revenge. And as is the norm with Dhulia’s
films, twist after twist is thrown at us to increase the drama. Amidst all
this, Raja falls in love with a Bengali girl Mitali (Sonakshi Sinha) and
manages to find time dancing around in the streets of Kolkata.
Saif and Jimmy, brilliant
actors both, bring a kind of brusque but unbreakable friendship between them, a
bonding that you know only death can break. And it does. Dhulia, in his most
mass-oriented cinematic outing to date, brings a lot of Jai-Veeru's Sholay
bonding into play. The two actors do the rest. They gamely sink their teeth
into the morass of Indian politics, giving a stirring dignity to inherently
unsavoury episodes from the murky politics of Uttar Pradesh.
There’s a flimsy plot about
Raja trying to find a job and being forced into goondagardi, but it exists only
as a coat hanger on which to hang a random and disjointed series of skits. Toss
in a horrendous score by Sajid-Wajid and you’re looking at one hot mess of a
movie. Once all the boring ‘backstory’ bits are dealt with in the first half
you’ll be treated to a short series of dialoguebaazi that doubles as action
sequences – Khan vs Chunky Pandey, Khan vs Raj Babbar, Khan vs Vipin Sharma. Dhulia's
skills as a raconteur of remarkable aptitudes was most evident in Paan Singh
Tomar. Here, he attempts something even more daring. He merges mythological and
historical allusions into current politics and he weds heroism and hooliganism
without causing any discernible damage to his work's aesthetics.
The film's reckless momentum
is sustained and controlled by Dhulia's technicians who hit the right notes
while taking a route that hardly affords safe options. Dangerously careening
towards an anarchic world, Bullett Raja swerves away from catastrophe
underlining the plot and succeeds spectacularly in creating a world where
rampage is the rule. The soundrack is remarkably authentic, and I don't mean
the awful songs. Our cinema, even the most mature variety, still adheres to the
radio-play style of dialogue delivery where only one character speaks at one
time. Tigmanshu Dhulia allows the words to spill out of his characters as and
how they appear natural.
Bullett Raja is supposed to
be all about Saif Ali Khan. And not to discredit that claim, yes, the film is
his story but dejectedly Saif doesn’t bring his roguish Langda Tyagi element to
this film with confidence. He does carry a North Indian accent in the film but
that goes on and off. The very pretty Vidyut Jammwal wanders through the latter
half film doing kung fu kicks, careful to never take the spotlight away from
the camera-hogging superstar hero. If there’s one universal rule of Bollywood
filmmaking it is this: if you cast Gulshan Grover in your movie, you better
give the guy some good material to work with. Bullett Raja manages to make even
Grover seem tedious, and for that, I dislike the film even more.
The songs brakes the pace.
But then you really can't have a formula film without the song breaks. Bullett
Raja could have been so much more. Owing to the name of the director attached
with the film, it wouldn’t have been unfair on our part to have expected it to
deliver all guns
Movie Rating : 3/5
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