Release
date:
|
October 26, 2018
|
Director:
|
Gauravv K. Chawla
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Radhika Apte, Chitrangda Singh
Hindi |
In a brief job
interview in the conference room of a leading Mumbai stockbroking firm, Baazaar’s hero Rizwan Ahmed is challenged by a smart alec MBA to sell a
cup of coffee in that room. “Sell it and the job is yours,” he says. To
underline his desire to belittle Rizwan, the fellow spits into a mug before
handing it to him.
Rizwan is from a small town, but
he is no shrinking puppy. He coolly drinks the spit, puts down a hundred bucks
on the table and says, “Sold, Sir. To myself.”
(Note:
that was not a spoiler – the scene is in the film’s promotional trailer.)
Ooh! So clever, na?
Or maybe not? Remember, the said
smart alec only asked for the coffee to be sold, not drunk. The point of
getting Rizwan to drink the spit was to underline the lengths to which he is
willing to go to make it big – and of course to come up with a memorable scene –
but if you think about it, far from being smart, he was being downright stupid,
and the same can be said of the scene, based as it is on a gaping loophole.
When director Gauravv K. Chawla’s
Baazaar is not trying to impress us
in this fashion with its coolth, it remains inoffensive and mildly engaging
even if generic. Rizwan is from Allahabad and keen to strike gold in Mumbai’s
share market. His God in the business is Shakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a
Gujarati billionaire who has risen similarly from the ranks.
When Shakun is not buying and
selling shares, betraying friends and selling his soul, he hangs out with his
beautiful wife Mandira (Chitrangda Singh) – a khaandaani raees who has never known want – and their two lovely
daughters. When Rizwan is not on the trading floor, he is building a romantic
relationship with his gorgeous, unscrupulous colleague Priya (Radhika Apte).
A dogged SEBI official,
meanwhile, has made it his goal to pin Shakun down one day.
Rizwan deals in stocks and
shares, the film deals in the lines people cross and consciences that are
killed on the road to wealth, and whether it is necessary to be unemotional and
amoral to get there. The most interesting parts come when Shakun turns on
persons who accuse him of being a fraud – suddenly, his calm exterior cracks,
he snarls and gets violent as he lists out the fraudulent measures adopted by
the other individual without any qualms until he was outwitted by Shakun.
There is an allusion to class
bias in one of these confrontations. Corruption, after all, is less abhorrent
in many Indian eyes when it comes packaged in designer business suits, an
urbane exterior and a slick English accent. What Baazaar hints at therefore is also the hypocrisy of those who judge
the corrupt. These are the elements in the script that should have been
explored further. Unfortunately, Chawla is far more committed to the thriller
aspect of the film, and that part is just so-so. While most of Baazaar is devoted to Rizwan’s rise and
fall, his revenge and the accompanying dialoguebaazi come too quickly and too
conveniently to be either convincing or gripping. Even Baazaar’s expensive look and colour scheme that foregrounds white,
red and steel gray, is too familiar from past Bollywood projects that are
distinguished by their conviction that they are suave. The result is a middling
film, meriting neither love nor hate.
Radhika Apte’s striking presence
makes hers the most impactful of the film’s supporting characters. Chitrangda
Singh looks stunning, but has the same expression pasted on her face
throughout. Rohan Mehra, who gets the meatiest role
in Baazaar, is okay as an actor, I
guess, but there is nothing about his performance or his personality that
explains why so much faith has been invested in him.
Saif Ali Khan’s
swag never flags in his performance as Shakun. No one can make evil look quite
as attractive as this Khan. That said, he really needs to take a long hard look
at his script choices. He is unarguably the Hindi film industry’s most
under-rated star actor, an artiste who does not get the credit he deserves for
the depth he is capable of because he is so good at what he does, that he makes
it look easy. Someone please convince him to revive the instincts that led him
to Dil Chahta Hai, Hum Tum, Ek Hasina Thi and Omkara,
and to get himself more projects worthy of his gift.
Until then, those
of us who respect his innate talent and charisma will be left continuously
tearing our hair out wondering when he will find the next Farhan Akhtar, the
next Kunal Kohli, the next Sriram Raghavan or the next Vishal Bhardwaj of his
life. Baazaar ain’t a patch on any of
the above films, but it is not intolerable either. What it is is forgettable.
Saif Ali Khan is the best thing about this ordinary film.
Rating (out of five stars): *1/2
CBFC Rating (India):
|
UA
|
Running time:
|
140 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
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