You can’t hide the jackal here

Delhi Belly ended with the Russian doll (a Banaras handcraft multi-wooden one used in the movie though) filled with diamonds kept in a showcase. Its doppelganger, filled with shit, however, landed with the goon!

Nine years later, director Mayank Sharma — who surprisingly had also directed Breathe (with Madhavan) — picks up the doll to present another crime thriller with the same name and a little addition to it. Well, am sure you can’t connect the dots here! The doll is the story here which opens and narrows you down to find that it’s the one that had landed on the table of Vijay Raaz.

Had this story been picked up by Anurag Kashyap or Anees Bazmee, it could have been an “ugly” show that would have fuelled your “deewangee” for good movies!

Filled with glaring factual errors to Delhi darshan and a predictable story, all you have in front of you is good acting and fine cinematography, by S Bharathwaaj. That’s it.

The story: A child is kidnapped and her well-to-do and reputed (in terms of status in society) parents, doing almost nothing for the first nine months, suddenly gear up to commit crimes to get her back. At least, that’s what you learn from the trailer. No further spoiler.

The flaws: While the first nine months are — through dialogues — compiled and summarised in the first episode, the errors start ticking every box you think about. Spot more if you are a Delhiite. How? Avinash Sabrawal (Abhishek Bachchan) visits Ramlila Maidan and learns about the “qualities” of Raavan. Let’s assume Ram Leela takes place at the end of October or beginning of November. At the very next scene, if I remember vaguely, another couple plans to meet at Surajkund Mela, which takes place in February. I mean it’s fine until you continue to show the winter in Delhi and present a dialogue way down in the eighth or the ninth episode that “thand bahut barh gayi hai aajkal”. How long does winter stay in Delhi? What type of directional flaw is this?

The next one is a diabetic child left in the open with chocolates and pastries and God knows what else sweet items in front of her.

The third flaw is the kidnapper wakes up exactly at the same time every night to go and check the child. First, no one notices him and he does his work flawlessly. Wait. The director did notice this later! He then made a character or two question him but the answers and responses from the kidnapper were so satisfactory that they smiled and left.

Nowhere close to what the Madhavan show offered, this 45×12 (average minutes every show multiplied by episodes) is nothing else but a waste of 540 minutes.

If you still love Abby baby, watch it as he pulls his character well, along with, of course, Amit Sadh and Nithya Menen.

My pick, however, is Shraddha Kaul, who plays a cameo and worth watching. She is a plate full of abhivyakti!

P.S: Ajay Devgn — in news for producing a very raunchy, filthy and poor multi-starrer web series recently — would have been and could be my Avinash Sabrawal.

My rating: 2/5