Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai Dobaara review

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Milan Luthria and Ekta Kapoor had woven the magical ‘Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai’ that featured Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi. The filmmakers also garnered applause for Vidya Balan’s ‘The Dirty Picture’. But the hit formula that they had devised seems to have gone awry this time around. ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobaara’ is nothing but an out and out Akshay Kumar film with nothing more to offer.while not a good film by any stretch of the imagination — a tolerable throwback to the dialogue-laden movies of yore. Things have gotten far worse this time around, with characters talking exclusively in the sort of aphoristic couplets found on auto-rickshaw stickers.

Akshay Kumar makes some of those lines work, but the rest are beyond redemption. What is most upsetting is how the vital lines flounder the most: unrelated inanities pop up throughout, but it is when the script actually demands a line with some heft that there is none to be found. It is as if the writers copy-paste lines from railway station shayari books whenever they can, but at times of actual dramatic punch, nothing fits.

Except, that is, Akshay Kumar. Kumar — despite his preparation for this film consisting merely of picking out the right pair of sunglasses — relishes playing villain. He says as much, too, in a rare good line about how the Hindi film hero only enjoys the final reel where things end happily while the baddie lives it up throughout the film.And so his Shoaib Bhai smokes and slithers and, for some reason, taps chairs repeatedly on the floor till he gets the attention of the room. A dreaded gangster, Shoaib is most impressed by those rare ones who stay impudent to his face — even after learning that those folks have no idea who he is, and seeing them cower like everyone else when apprised of his omnipotence.

Director Milan Luthria opts for a very conventional treatment to this film. The cinematic liberties taken in the film are anything but acceptable. The hide-and-seek game between the police and the dreadful don is quite unrealistic and it goes without saying that it’s total filmy!Pritam has produced a masterpiece in the form of ‘Yeh Tune Kya Kiya’ sung by Javed Bashir. The ‘Taiyyab Ali’ track is a good attempt to revive a vintage hit. But the rest of the songs, though hummable, look unnecessary. Luthria could have done without them thereby keeping the velocity of the film steady.Nonetheless, OUATIMD is a tale of a don who wishes to win over the love of his life! Watch it only for Akshay Kumar.