Movie Review: 'Aurangzeb'

39Aurangzeb39 UA Actionthriller Director Atul Sabharwal Cast Arjun Kapoor Prithviraj Sukumaran Rishi Kapoor Sasha Agha Dipti Naval Amrita Singh Ratings The movie starts promisingly as Aarya Prithviraj Sukumaran talks about the dirty ldquocollection businessrdquo that he and his family members are indulging in The business brings in loads of money wads of notes being shuffled around stocked in suitcases and generally tossed around But surprisingly the womenfolk of the house arenrsquot even aware of the moolah that is brought in and stacked regularly in the very house that they live in Arjun Kapoor in 39Aurangzeb39 Well what they fondly call the collection business is the hafta vasooli that DCP Ravikant Rishi Kapoor indulges in along with his son Dev Sikandar Kher and his nephew Aarya Only the soninlaw Prashant who is also part of the police force is absolutely unaware of the lsquokala dhandharsquo that his family is involved in Aarya was happy helping his uncle and intermittently stocking up his secret treasure room with what else but money only if his father Anupam Kher in an itsy bitsy role once upon a timehonest cop hadnrsquot dropped a bomb of a secret on him And it is this secret that leads Aarya to once the dreaded underworld don and now a real estate baron Yashwardhan Jackie Shroff and his impudent son Ajay Arjun Kapoor Yashwardhan has a wily lady partner Amrita Singh in business who generally makes plans to keep Ajay out of the office and in the arms of his girlfriend Ritu Sasha Agha Ravikant and the team capture Ajay and send his lookalike Vishal also Arjun Kapoor to stay with Yashwardhan and get information about his underhand dealings Vishal manages to shake up the very foundations that Yashwardhan built in just one day of him going to office and then the latter ends up in the hospital And then there is a twist to the story which is as unbelievable as a seeing a reindeer on the Mumbai streets Ravikant and the boys of his family are posted to the Gurgaon police station And the director Atul Sabharwal makes sure you donrsquot forget that fact because the name of the place is mentioned at least once in every three sentences and Yashwardhan too is a real estate developer in that area Story offers no novelty In fact at one point the story reminded me of an innocent story called 39Do Phool39 which had Neetu Kapoor play twins one left with the mother and the other with the father Well this is just to emphasise how old the story line is But a better treatment a more sharply edited film and this story could have been turned into a thrilling fare But unfortunately the movie moves at such a meandering and selfindulgent pace that after a point you stop caring if it moves forward or sideways Arjun Kapoor in double role as Ajay and Vishal is earnest He shines in some scenes too but overall he needs a lot more maturity to carry two roles of this kind of diversity on his young shoulders Amitabh Bachchan too was in the same situation in 39Don39 But no we wonrsquot dare compare the two performances Sasha Agha is less than ordinary The song 39Barbaadiyan39 is quite a revelation of her singing talent though Prithviraj is good but seems stuck in a caricaturish role and ends up being stiff and repetitive At one point Aaryarsquos wife asks him why he never smiles I guess we know the reason why First Aiyya and now this Prithviraj has enough reasons not to smile in Bollywood Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff shine in their respective roles But my heart goes out for senior actresses like Amrita Singh and Dipti Naval To think some of our best actresses have ended up doing roles that neither justify nor suit their calibre Some of the lines like lsquoApne sapnon se bade hote hairsquo would have been powerful if only they were not repeated so often And in the meanwhile Moghul emperor Aurangzeb must have at least taken half a turn in his grave