Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami
Director: Kushan Nandy
Rating: 2.5/5
Two professional assassin are drinking on a bridge over
railway tracks, sharing their life stories and reminiscing how they entered
into the production of killing people.
One of them consider the other his teacher. The junior has
so much admiration for the senior that he has renamed himself Banke Bihari
(Jatin Goswami) out of respect for his guru, Babu Bihari (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).
A weird self realisation takes over Banke when he learns
that Babu gets paid Rs 25,000 for each murder while he gets only Rs 8,000. That
turns their dialogue towards inflation and how it has become difficult for
hired guns to operate with honesty. In an inebriated state, they confront each
other to murder three people. Whosoever will eliminate the three first will win
and the other will have to leave the business of contract killing.
There is mutual respect flanked by the two as they consider
contract killing like any other job. Daredevils in their own rights, they enjoy
patronage from local politicians. They have accepted nomadic lifestyle as their
fate and are not attached to anybody except their craft of commit murders in
unique ways.
Like Raman and Raghav, they have a connection. Babu doesn’t
mind Banke flirting with his girlfriend Fulwa (Bidita Bag). In fact, all three
drink and dance together. There are indications of Banke getting intimate with
Fulwa beyond convinced limits, but Babu turns a blind eye as Banke has already
passed his trust test.
It reads like a quirky thriller on paper, but in execution,
it’s borderline ridiculous.
Kushan Nandy open his film with a lot of promise. We meet a
gun-trotting Babu and hear Amitabh Bachchan’s songs in the background. It’s
mufassil Uttar Pradesh where local strongman Dubey (Anil George) loves to see
his wife getting massage from a burly masseuse. Though Nandy has left it to our
imagination what could have happened next, but he evidently hints towards a
mutual understanding between Dubey and his wife about dissimilar sources of
sexual pleasure.
Then there is razor-tongued Jiji (Divya Dutta) who lusts for
power and abuses non-stop. She holds the key to local political thrones and
takes challenges head-on. Her conversations with local top cop (Bhagwan Tiwari)
are laden with innuendo and bring out the struggle to have an upper hand in
local proceedings.
Babumoshai Bandookbaaz has got the ingredients, but their
proportions are not right. If you laugh at a Nawaz jibe then you also sense the
futility of useless conspiracies. Sometimes for absolutely no reason. Then
there is a twist that’s as compulsory as Nawazuddin stroking his hair in every
second scene.
Those who want to compare it with Gangs Of Wasseypur will
deeply feel about the lack of in-depth back-stories. Solely needy on Nawazuddin
Siddiqui’s rugged image, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz lacks a cohesive script. Its
texture is close to a web series than a film where twists happen to keep the
story afloat till the next episode. Nandy doesn’t use them to cover-up the
script loopholes.
Bidita Bag as gutsy and ambiguous Fulwa adds steam. Her
expressive eyes tell the tales of a young lonely woman among wolves disguised
as men. Her comfort level during intimate scenes with Nawazuddin fetches
attention. Her sensuousness adds a new measurement to her cobbler girl.
Watch: The soulful Barfani from Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Babumoshai Bandookbaaz appears superficial because it fails
to explore characters and their idiosyncrasies. It states all about them in a
matter of fact tone which eventually slacken the audience’s connect with them.
Some moments of spur-of-the-moment laughter are of course
there. For example, when Banke watches The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Hindi
and tries to imitate Clint Eastwood. Or, when Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Jatin
Goswami argue who should be credited with a finicky murder while their hostage
supplies them the word they were looking for, which is tie-breaker.
But these moment can’t take away your attention from the
shallowness of the entire facade. It’s a film pretending to be a stylishly raw
gangster saga originate in the interiors of the Hindi heartland, but in
reality, it’s nothing more than another attempt to look at the crime prone
lower strata of society through a rose colored glass. Sadly, Babumoshai
Bandookbaaz never pierces our hearts.