Ghanchakar

Rajkumar Gupta proved himself in his first and second film – Aamir and No One Killed Jessica and so we were kind of over expecting things from him. His first took a hardboiled look at urban terrorism and his second was a critique on the lax criminal system. The third time around he veered into the Guy Ritchie territory. Well, the treatment is Guy Ritchie style but the pace isn’t and that’s basically the fatal flaw with the film.

The story revolves around a married and settled, laidback safecracker Sanju (Emraan Hashmi) and his loud punjabi fashionista wife Neetu (Vidya Balan). Two baddies, Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) and Idris (Namit Das) employ Sanju for a bank job (the truly hilarious sequence of the film) and after the successful heist, leave the loot with him. They plan to distribute the cash back when the heat cools down. But Sanju seemingly loses his memory and doesn’t remember where he’s hidden the moolah. The two thugs enter his house as squatters in a bid to unearth the truth and things go downhill from there for the idyllic couple.

Now, all this would have made for a memorable comedy of misadventure but Rajkumar Gupta chooses the tread the thriller road. Sadly, he chooses to do so at a lethargic pace and hence, the punch when it does come loses impact because by then you’ve given up on the film. Parvez Sheikh and Raj Kumar Gupta have left too many holes in the screenplay. It may have sounded good on paper but suffers from flawed execution.

It’s the chemistry between Vidya and Emraan which lifts up the film. The screen comes alive in their scenes together and one wished there was more interaction between the two. Both actors look good as a couple and should sign more films. Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das too keep our hopes up but haven’t been utilized to their full extent. They should have been portrayed either as bumbling idiots or as menacing goons and mixing the two character types makes the audience lose focus.

All-in-all, one expected more from Rajkumar Gupta. Let’s hope he takes the lessons to heart and comes back with a firecracker of a film.