Another weekend, another flick!

The title of this post should serve as an indicator to what I thought of the movie. Nothing special, nothing extraordinary, nothing too bad tooo. Just regular bollywood masala fare served in a slick manner.

Shootout at Lokhandwala - Apoorva Lakhia's third directorial venture turned out to be a complete male movie. One that will set the adrenaline pumping, one that will be embraced by the masses for all its violence, bhaigiri and item songs and one that will be forgotten the moment it is out of theatres. Dont expect to see the DVD's make their way into filmbuff's collection! This guy is one lucky director who has friends in all the right places and in all the right circles! He ropes in Abhishek Bacchan with a ridiculous plot and makes Mumbai se Aaya Mera Dost - disaster. He sees a DVD of Man on Fire and ropes in the Big B to make Ek Ajnabee. Then he reads about the Lokhandwala shootout, offers ACP AA Khan a bit role in the movie in exchange for loads of info and makes a movie with a mammoth star cast.

There was no one in the movie who had any kinda depth to his character, no one whose character went beyond a few lines, or a few bullets to be precise. The director sure had no idea how to juggle his cast and so ends up making a very superficial movie. It will appeal to a lot of people though. I was reminded of how I enjoyed seeing 300 earlier this year. A raw action movie appealing to the male psyche purely on the basis of its awesome battle scenes. Shootout is very similar in this respect, it is a raw action movie, the action very gory, very bloody, very very basic. Even the corpses being dragged away had to be shown in full, blood trails and all. Two or three item songs, none too long, none that was necessary, though none that the masses would mind (thanks to Aarti Chabria, whose stint down south seems to have helped her). Some rousing scenes with Sanjay and his troupe and Viviek (or however else it is spelt) and his troupe walking across the screen to a thumping background beat are pretty cool.

Coming to the cast, Sanjay Dutt looks more like his usual gangster, what with the open shirt and gun sticking out, but is pretty neat. Suniel Shetty and Arbaaz Khan do not have much to do. Coming to the gangsta's Viviek does a bad job of going back to his Company days. Tusshar Kapoor must be feeling bad when he does not get a good role even in a movie co-produced by his sister. None of his sidekicks have much of a role to be talked about. Abhishek Bacchan, all I can say is he is a very loyal friend to have agreed to have done a blink and miss role for him. Big B must have done the role while he was sleepwalking or something.

Go see this movie if you enjoyed seeing 300. Pretty much the same a**- kicking, shoot to kill action. Good as long as it lasts...nothing that you will take home!