3 hours ago
2
It must be Misbegotten Adaptations week. This Hindi gangland epic’s credentials are impeccable: director Vishal Bhardwaj previously wowed with textured, inventive variations on Macbeth (Maqbool, 2003), Othello (Omkara, 2006) and Hamlet (Haider, 2014). But rather than a straightforward modernisation of Romeo and Juliet, this latest revisits a grisly true-crime story ripped from Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai, the book that previously inspired Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2022 hit, Gangubai Kathiawadi. The results align Bhardwaj with the newly lurid turn mainstream Bollywood has taken with recent smashes Animal and Dhurandhar, but it’s jarring to witness, as if Kenneth Branagh had followed his turn-of-the-90s Shakespeare successes by trying for Natural Born Killers.
For Venice (or Baz Luhrmann’s Venice Beach), Bhardwaj swaps the Mumbai underworld of the 1990s, ushering in the movies’ first morally degenerate Romeo. Shahid Kapoor’s Hussein Ustara – nicknamed Romeo – is a heavily tattooed bellower employed as a hitman for a local godfather; his Juliet (Animal’s Triptii Dimri) an aggrieved widow clutching a sizeable hitlist. These two are star-crossed: he rescues her amid a bungled assassination attempt on the lawyer smearing her late husband, earning them both powerful foes. The fish tank through which Leo glimpsed Claire Danes here abuts the bed to which this Romeo takes two escorts while his Juliet listens in. Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.
Bold image-making and considered design are visible through the murk, and the performances are strong. Kapoor and Dimri commit to this plot’s peculiar demands, while Nana Patekar is appreciably sly as our antihero’s wearied handler. Yet where Gangubai showcased Bhansali’s heightened tonal sensitivity, the gruelling three hours here veer between crude and emotionally inert: a tale of obsession and abjection, with its dead-eyed lovers dragging one another towards the gutter and the grave. It’s the kind of distinctive misfire that could only be made by someone who is so hung up on a story they swallow its poisons whole. Still, it’s mildly heartbreaking to see such a thoughtful cineaste tossing his library card for the leering tough guy.
