review of luck
When a film starts with a group of blindfolded men darting across several railway tracks where Indian railways trains on steroids zip to and fro and manage to knock off all the men except one--Sanjay Dutt of course because "hathyaar hai inka luck"--you are almost sure you know what's coming. When this cuts straight to the song Azma luck, azma luck with Sanjay Dutt sitting on a throne wearing shiny pathan suits with matching jackets and dancing with blonde extras on a revolving stage you know for sure what's coming.
Luck doesn't disappoint. It's a bad copy of several good European films and even more horrific than you've forecast after seeing the first few scenes. It instantly accords Kambakkht Ishq with cult status. The story, dialogues, written and directed by credits are all Soham Shah so you know whom to blame. Did Shree Ashtavinayak Films think it was making a comedy? After all the production house does have Priyadarshan and David Dhawan on its rolls.
So Sanjay Dutt plays Karim Mussa, a lucky person who, as a child, was the lone survivor of the burning of a masjid. As a teenager he jumped from the fourth floor of a building on a dare, by 21 he is the king of cards. By the time you meet him, he's had 40 years of luck and he's investing in a man's luck.
The film moves with blinding speed through Mussa's life, the suicide of our next lucky hero's father (Ram, played by Imran Khan), the Rs20 crore debt he must now face, his encounter with a strange man who buys a lottery ticket every week and how Ram decides to rob the ATM of SACV bank where he works. As the ATM chor runs in circles through Horniman Circle, he meets Lakhan Tamal (Danny Denzongpa), Mussa's right hand man (luck of course; all inexplicable twists and turns in this film are attributed to luck). Lakhan who tells Ram "tu khud ek ATM hai" wants to rent Ram's luck for 15 days. Much gambling, one ghastly song and one truly bizarre light-this-useless-lighter-five-consecutive-times and I'll give you six lakhs later, Ram decides he wants nothing more to do with Lakhan.
Many of the men in this film sit on thrones and wear thick jewellery. Sanjay Dutt flaunts a heavy horseshoe pendant necklace, in case you've forgotten this movie is about l-u-c-k. Everyone has guns that never work and everyone uses the word "luck" at least 3,452 times, each time in the most clichéd way imaginable.
I haven't seen a film like this since the early 1990s--it reminded me of 1994's Vijaypath and all those films I've seen in the theatres of Bombay Central and Grant Road.
Anyway, this is only the first half hour of the film. From here it gets progressively worse. Essentially Mussa and Lakhan line up a group of lucky men and women to compete in an elaborate game (that takes up the rest of the movie) in South Africa. Of course gamblers from across the world are betting on who will win the game. One lucky person will win Rs20 crore in 20 days. The lucky people of Indian nationality include Ram (who decides to give his luck a shot); Mithun (with references to his role in Ghulami, according to the friend with whom I saw this film); Shruti Hassan (who looks gorgeous but whose dialogue delivery could do with a booster shot); Chitrashi Rawat (a Pakistani camel racer who is exported to South Africa for Rs4 lakh and who talks like a Bombay street urchin); and Ravi Kissen (who just got released from Tihar jail because the rope they were hanging him with slipped--explanation: luck). "Tera luck tujhse bhi jyada haraami nikla," Danny tells the psycho criminal.
Thankfully interval saves the movie watcher at this point. After the break, it's all downhill and the audience laughs uproariously at all the serious plot twists. There are sharks, parachutes, a burning train, and an unbelievable climax that had the audience in splits. Luckily.
When a film starts with a group of blindfolded men darting across several railway tracks where Indian railways trains on steroids zip to and fro and manage to knock off all the men except one--Sanjay Dutt of course because "hathyaar hai inka luck"--you are almost sure you know what's coming. When this cuts straight to the song Azma luck, azma luck with Sanjay Dutt sitting on a throne wearing shiny pathan suits with matching jackets and dancing with blonde extras on a revolving stage you know for sure what's coming.
Luck doesn't disappoint. It's a bad copy of several good European films and even more horrific than you've forecast after seeing the first few scenes. It instantly accords Kambakkht Ishq with cult status. The story, dialogues, written and directed by credits are all Soham Shah so you know whom to blame. Did Shree Ashtavinayak Films think it was making a comedy? After all the production house does have Priyadarshan and David Dhawan on its rolls.
So Sanjay Dutt plays Karim Mussa, a lucky person who, as a child, was the lone survivor of the burning of a masjid. As a teenager he jumped from the fourth floor of a building on a dare, by 21 he is the king of cards. By the time you meet him, he's had 40 years of luck and he's investing in a man's luck.
The film moves with blinding speed through Mussa's life, the suicide of our next lucky hero's father (Ram, played by Imran Khan), the Rs20 crore debt he must now face, his encounter with a strange man who buys a lottery ticket every week and how Ram decides to rob the ATM of SACV bank where he works. As the ATM chor runs in circles through Horniman Circle, he meets Lakhan Tamal (Danny Denzongpa), Mussa's right hand man (luck of course; all inexplicable twists and turns in this film are attributed to luck). Lakhan who tells Ram "tu khud ek ATM hai" wants to rent Ram's luck for 15 days. Much gambling, one ghastly song and one truly bizarre light-this-useless-lighter-five-consecutive-times and I'll give you six lakhs later, Ram decides he wants nothing more to do with Lakhan.
Many of the men in this film sit on thrones and wear thick jewellery. Sanjay Dutt flaunts a heavy horseshoe pendant necklace, in case you've forgotten this movie is about l-u-c-k. Everyone has guns that never work and everyone uses the word "luck" at least 3,452 times, each time in the most clichéd way imaginable.
I haven't seen a film like this since the early 1990s--it reminded me of 1994's Vijaypath and all those films I've seen in the theatres of Bombay Central and Grant Road.
Anyway, this is only the first half hour of the film. From here it gets progressively worse. Essentially Mussa and Lakhan line up a group of lucky men and women to compete in an elaborate game (that takes up the rest of the movie) in South Africa. Of course gamblers from across the world are betting on who will win the game. One lucky person will win Rs20 crore in 20 days. The lucky people of Indian nationality include Ram (who decides to give his luck a shot); Mithun (with references to his role in Ghulami, according to the friend with whom I saw this film); Shruti Hassan (who looks gorgeous but whose dialogue delivery could do with a booster shot); Chitrashi Rawat (a Pakistani camel racer who is exported to South Africa for Rs4 lakh and who talks like a Bombay street urchin); and Ravi Kissen (who just got released from Tihar jail because the rope they were hanging him with slipped--explanation: luck). "Tera luck tujhse bhi jyada haraami nikla," Danny tells the psycho criminal.
Thankfully interval saves the movie watcher at this point. After the break, it's all downhill and the audience laughs uproariously at all the serious plot twists. There are sharks, parachutes, a burning train, and an unbelievable climax that had the audience in splits. Luckily.
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