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‘Thugs of Hindostan’ reunites writer/director Vijay Krishna Acharya and leading Bol­lywood star Aamir Khan, whose previous team up gave us ‘Dhoom 3’—the 2013 heist film that saw Khan play an illusionist turned bank rob­ber. Accused of drawing on plot elements from ‘The Prestige’ and ‘Now You See Me’ and featuring VFX mayhem of crazy and outright silly action stunts, the third installment of the Dhoom series was mostly panned. But despite its weak critical reception, it went on to become a Bollywood blockbuster. While still riding on the high wave of making one of the highest earning Hindi films ever, Acharya and Khan were handed a mammoth budget for their next film, Thugs of Hindostan, deemed to be the most expensive Hindi film ever made. If only lavish spending could mag­ically transform mediocre storytell­ing. Thugs of Hindostan is a poorly structured film that tries to cover up its design faults with patchy VFX work and overbearingly loud action sequences. Movie audiences will fail to find a true Bollywood adventure; but rather an exhaustive ordeal that whirlpools with predictability.

The year is 1795 and India is under the control of British East India Company. We meet Firangi Mallah (Aamir Khan), a smooth-talking trickster who earns his bread by helping gangs of Indian thugs rob passing travelers and then dou­ble crossing those Indian thugs by handing them over to the British officials. Impressed by his tricks and charms, and the notion that his loyalty can be bought, the cruel Brit­ish officer Clive (Lloyd Owen) gives Firangi the job to infiltrate the gang of outlaws led by Khudabaksh Azaad (Amitabh Bachchan), who seeks to chase away the British from the kingdom of Raunakpur, so that Prin­cess Zafira (Fatima Sana Shaikh), the rightful heiress to the throne, gets her kingdom back.

Even though Vijay Krishna Acha­rya sets his film during the Brit­ish Raj, Thugs of Hindostan is his­torically inaccurate. He chooses the aesthetics of classic Holly­wood swashbuckler adventures featuring pirates, cannon fights and swords duels. Khudabaksh’s outlaws live like gypsies in a cave and Firangi’s dressed like the Mad Hatter in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Anyone used to this familiar narra­tive could easily guess how things proceed after Firangi penetrates Khudabaksh’s gang and how his unchanging deceitful nature is trans­formed by a greater calling. Acharya packs in no new surprises to chal­lenge our assumptions.

Aamir Khan makes do by portray­ing Firangi in animated and playful strokes. What’s essentially missing from Firangi is that he’s not much likable as the film’s protagonist. His double crossing intention is stretched so far that when he has a change of heart, it feels very make believe. Bachchan as Khudabaksh mostly glooms and harps on about “freedom” and “country’s soil”. Fatima Sana Shaikh, who ought to be the film’s emotional core and the one who wants to come to peace with her parents’ murder at the hands of the British, is sidelined by the stature of both Khan and Bachchan. She strictly maintains a tight face and emotes the feeling of distaste throughout the movie. And poor Katrina Kaif is restricted to two song sequences and in very brief flirty exchanges with Firangi.

Thugs of Hindostan is very pre­dictable and rarely has moments that take you to the edge of your seat. If the film turns out to be a box office winner for Aamir Khan and Vijay Krishna Acharya, then the real victims will be the audiences who let themselves get tricked by a movie made with sheer lack of imagina­tion, ambition and purpose.

 Spize—the authentic Nepali style food joint—is doing everything right to attract hungry Nepali and foreign foodies to its small and cozy prem­ises in Bhagwati Marga, Thamel. Spize is dedicated to providing cheap, deli­cious and hygienic food to its guests. It serves traditional Nepali as well as travelers’ food using Himalayan spices as flavor. The restaurant offers unique breakfast options. You can for instance choose to have Shalom Himalaya, iTraveller, Trek­kers’ Delight, Lost in Thamel or Full Everest (all set-breakfast options) to start your day. All served with fresh brewed coffee.

Momo, chowmein, sekuwa and other Newari snacks are an all-day affair and Spize also offers the very famous Thakali Set, a favorite among its customers.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

- Silver Dollar Pancakes

- Thakali food Set

- Grilled Chicken Satay

Opening hours: 8 am-9 pm

Location: Thamel

Cards: Not Accepted

Meal for 2: Rs 600

Reservations: 014413730

 It’s impossible to scavenge a single moment of originality in ‘Baazaar’. Director Gauravv K. Chawla tries to put on the big boots of Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone to present an Indian twist to those iconic Hollywood Wall Street mov­ies about big-league stock market players. But Baazaar is a film made without gambling much on new ideas. Instead it sails on safe waters to head on a narrative journey that has been done to death. Small-town stock trader Rizwan (Rohan Mehra) thinks it’s time to leave behind his middle-class roots and his principled father, who val­ues honesty and simple living, for a high-stake life of stock trading in Mumbai. After reaching Mumbai, the gooey-eyed and determined Rizwan works hard to first get accepted at a top-tier stock brok­ing company and climb the ladder to ultimately work side-by-side his idol Sakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a self-made business tycoon known for his questionable investment methods. Once our young rookie gets close to the seasoned player, it becomes pretty clear that swim­ming with sharks like Sakun comes with both perks and threats.

The screenplay doesn’t get too hard on the protagonist. Writers Aseem Arora and Parveez Sheikh pepper many mini-crises and close escapes at regular intervals. None of these land any empathetic effect or make us care for Rizwan.

We see him easily cruising out of these sticky situations because the writers give him too many lucky breaks and chances. Rohan Mehra, the spruced-up debutant, as Rizwan has an overbearing pres­ence, amplified by his average act­ing talent and his weakly written character who is arrogant, over­confident and stupid, but never very likable.

Saif Ali Khan’s Sakun Kothari is also pretty generic and one-di­mensional. From his first scene he’s established as a menacing and mean-spirited sociopath. But his mind games get tad too repetitive and lose steam as the story moves on. And the women of Baazaar, Radhika Apte and Chitrangda Singh, are wasted. They function as mere plot devices and are never given any character depth.

With an unoriginal story and less-than-inspiring performances, Baazaar lacks the ambitiousness to sell something interesting about the Indian stock market.

Just like Rizwan hero-wor­ships Sakun, director Gauravv K. Chawla bows to films like 2013’s ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and 1987’s ‘Wall Street’ as his holy grail. And in an attempt to recreate the arcs and themes of those films, Chawla is too boxed in by the glitz and glare of the Hollywood por­trayal of the stock market world that he deprives us of a uniquely Indian context.

Baazaar is the kind of movie that could’ve worked had it released five years ago. Today, due to our exposure to lot of Ameri­can TV series and films, it feels formulaic and isn’t clever enough to make us rave about it. To say the least, the film will be easily forgotten and wouldn’t increase the marketing values of the makers and actors involved O

 It’s impossible to scavenge a single moment of originality in ‘Baazaar’. Director Gauravv K. Chawla tries to put on the big boots of Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone to present an Indian twist to those iconic Hollywood Wall Street mov­ies about big-league stock market players. But Baazaar is a film made without gambling much on new ideas. Instead it sails on safe waters to head on a narrative journey that has been done to death. Small-town stock trader Rizwan (Rohan Mehra) thinks it’s time to leave behind his middle-class roots and his principled father, who val­ues honesty and simple living, for a high-stake life of stock trading in Mumbai. After reaching Mumbai, the gooey-eyed and determined Rizwan works hard to first get accepted at a top-tier stock brok­ing company and climb the ladder to ultimately work side-by-side his idol Sakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a self-made business tycoon known for his questionable investment methods. Once our young rookie gets close to the seasoned player, it becomes pretty clear that swim­ming with sharks like Sakun comes with both perks and threats.

The screenplay doesn’t get too hard on the protagonist. Writers Aseem Arora and Parveez Sheikh pepper many mini-crises and close escapes at regular intervals. None of these land any empathetic effect or make us care for Rizwan.

We see him easily cruising out of these sticky situations because the writers give him too many lucky breaks and chances. Rohan Mehra, the spruced-up debutant, as Rizwan has an overbearing pres­ence, amplified by his average act­ing talent and his weakly written character who is arrogant, over­confident and stupid, but never very likable.

Saif Ali Khan’s Sakun Kothari is also pretty generic and one-di­mensional. From his first scene he’s established as a menacing and mean-spirited sociopath. But his mind games get tad too repetitive and lose steam as the story moves on. And the women of Baazaar, Radhika Apte and Chitrangda Singh, are wasted. They function as mere plot devices and are never given any character depth.

With an unoriginal story and less-than-inspiring performances, Baazaar lacks the ambitiousness to sell something interesting about the Indian stock market.

Just like Rizwan hero-wor­ships Sakun, director Gauravv K. Chawla bows to films like 2013’s ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and 1987’s ‘Wall Street’ as his holy grail. And in an attempt to recreate the arcs and themes of those films, Chawla is too boxed in by the glitz and glare of the Hollywood por­trayal of the stock market world that he deprives us of a uniquely Indian context.

Baazaar is the kind of movie that could’ve worked had it released five years ago. Today, due to our exposure to lot of Ameri­can TV series and films, it feels formulaic and isn’t clever enough to make us rave about it. To say the least, the film will be easily forgotten and wouldn’t increase the marketing values of the makers and actors involved.

 There’s an expression in liter­ary circles called the “writ­ers’ writer”. This is someone whose work is highly admired/ talked about among other writers and yet he/she may be relatively unknown to the general public. The same expression can be bor­rowed in the case of films, and for directors in particular. Speak­ing of modern Hindi cinema, one director who deserves the label of “directors’ director” is Sriram Raghavan, the 55-year-old writer/ director of thrillers. His works enjoy cult following among aspir­ing filmmakers and film nerds but he has never been able to bask in global fame like Anurag Kashyap, nor is he much-talked about like Vishal Bhardhwaj, Dibakar Baner­jee or Neeraj Pandey. Raghavan’s limited appeal owes to his sticking to his niche of thriller/ suspense. With the exception of the spy-thriller ‘Agent Vinod’, all of his films seem to take place in the same world, where ordinary lives are thrown asunder by macabre crimes and moral decay. Two of his films —‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and ‘Bad­lapur’—are revenge flicks. And the cult favorite ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ is a racy pulp thriller about a man who digs himself a rabbit hole as he tries to conceal his crimes.

His latest film ‘Andhadhun’ (styl­ized as AndhaDhun) is filled with his trademark touches and I am happy to report that it’s a supe­rior companion piece to ‘Johnny Gaddaar’, in the sense that it’s a plot-driven film thriving on slow and naturally built taut moments. The film does not bother about fabricating suspense through mys­tery and the structure isn’t that of a whodunit. The audience is rather allowed to play God.

Raghavan understands that if viewers know everything about the characters while the characters know nothing about each other, it makes for a more participative viewing. We hold their secrets and have a larger context to feel amused or scared, even when these characters exhibit most ordi­nary of gestures.

The film’s title can be inter­preted in two ways. Literally, it translates as ‘reckless’ or ‘rash’, and figuratively it means a ‘blind tune’. It’s a clever title to a story that blends both these elements. We have a blind pianist (Ayush­mann Khurrana) whose talent makes him a novelty at a Mumbai bar. Things look bright for him: he has a budding romance with the bar-owner (Radhika Apte), and he hopes to put together enough money to strike it big in London. Then, one eventful day, in search of extra cash he knocks the door of an apartment belonging to a washed-up Bolly­wood actor of the 70s (Anil Dha­wan), who wants the pianist to play a private concert for him and his wife (Tabu) on their marriage anni­versary. But the day that promised a gentle, jazz-filled romantic cele­bration shifts to an uncomfortable and nervous frenzy.

Raghavan orchestrates the film like a seasoned music conductor. He begins at a leisurely pace, put­ting Khurrana’s reputation as the Hugh Grant of Hindi small-town romantic comedies to good use. The opening plays out like a fluffy, breezy romantic comedy. As the normalcy settles in, he instantly disrupts it with a gut-wrenching punch. This contrast escalates in intensity and events pile up and the director pumps his composition with a shot of nervous energy and unpredictability.

Khurrana’s performance helps the protagonist remain likeable even when he ventures into anti-hero territory. He softens and hardens believably, and keeps his morality intact. His transforma­tion is not as pessimistic as that of protagonists in Raghavan’s ear­lier films. Likewise, Tabu pulls off different shades of her character: as a noir-ish seductress, grieving wife and a master manipulator. She’s downright sympathetic and also genuinely scary. Radhika Apte is in a short but effective role. Other actors like Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Zakir Hussain, Chhaya Kadam and Ashwini Kalsekar are all given their own moments and dialogues to shine.

‘Andhadhun’ is proof that nobody knows how to spin the thriller genre better than Sriram Raghavan. The film not only has the marks of a mas­ter storyteller but also of a serious fanboy who injects 80s Bollywood nostalgia with the sensibilities of classic American and European films from Alfred Hitchcock and Louis Malle. I personally hope ‘Andhadhun’ succeeds in giving Sriram Raghavan the recognition he duly deserves.