OUATIMD - Review + BO Thread - Page 43

Ghantaa 🤪

by Box Office India (August 20, 2013)

Ashdoc's movie review---Once upon a time in Mumbai dobara

The number of Films that are being made based on Dawood !!---One wonders if he is bankrolling them to get maximum publicity for himself...

But this one makes a mockery of the great Don...

For instead of running his illegal empire coldheartedly , it shows him falling in love and giving too much importance to a woman...

Akshay Kumar plays Shoaib ( loosely based on Dawood ) , the Don who is so powerful that he can even turn the lights off in all of Mumbai , or so he boasts...

Problem is---Akshay Kumar's voice simply lacks the punch , and his acting lacks the depth needed to make a real impression on the audience...
His portrayal must be the weakest one of the Don , especially after seeing the performance of Ranadeep Hooda in D and Rishi Kapoor in D Day...

And I suddenly realised that I was missing an actor I disliked---Eemraan Hashmi , who played the budding Don with supreme confidence in the earlier version of ' Once upon...' .

As if to compensate for the lack of punch in his acting and his voice , the director shows Akshay ( Shoaib ) mouth too many airy dialogues---just too many of them...
But they don't hide Akshay's lack of acting skills , but in fact only serve to highlight them...

So Akshay tries pitifully to fit into the shoes of the great Don , and while doing so falls in love with a budding starlet played by Sonakshi Sinha...

But she does not receprocate , but falls in love with his henchman ( played by Imran Khan )...

All this while however , she has been hanging out with both in a manner that one make one believe that she is two timing both of them and toying with both...

So a love triangle develops , and the big question is---who will get her in the end ??

Who cares ?? Neither of them is worth it , judging from their acting skills...
Nor is Sonakshi worth fighting for , at least in my opinion...
Nor is the film worth watching...

Meanwhile Shoaib's rival Rawal ( played by Mahesh Manjrekar ) brings the situation to a boil by shooting Sonakshi---of course , he is only repaying his debt , for Shoaib and his henchman have tried to kill him on numerpus occasions and succeeded in only killing his girlfriend...

So the Don and his henchman and the rival don have to fight it out over their grudges over women---and the audience has to yawn while struggling to keep awake to find out who emerges triumphant in the end...

But whoever emerges triumphant in the end , the audience is certainly the loser---for it wasted its hard earned money on seeing this film...

Meanwhile the police are also closing in---they already tried once by using Shoaib's other henchman Jimmy as cat's paw...But Shoaib tracked and shot dead Jimmy ( who was innocent ) even though police were around him while mouthing another airy fairy dialogue , thus showing his legendary cruelty...
This Akshay Kumar acted legendary cruelty is supposed to make us quake in our books , but it doesn't...Yawn...

So what happens in the end ?? Don't watch the movie for that...

I got so bored ( actually bored is not the right word for it---hindi has a nice word for it called thakela ) while watching the movie that I took three days after watching the movie to even think about starting to write a review of it...

And the very fact that I am writing a review inspite of my thakela mood is due to my commitment to those who read my reviews...

Verdict---Disappointing .

====

one awesome show that was.

While the review was fairly entertaining to read, the reference to Dawood Ibrahim as a 'great' don was not just completely incorrect but also very hurtful to scores of Indians, who have suffered because of him. That rat-bas***d coward killed so many innocent people in our country, so calling him great, in whatever context is simply insulting the sentiments of a million people.

And I am really glad, that film which sought to glorify a man like Dawood is failing. Well-deserved.

Also, poor Akshay...I don't think anyone, least of all him, would have thought that people would actually compare him with Emraan in an unfavourable light. This is what happens when you choose wrong scripts.

PS: Can't believe, Sonakshi squandered all her well-deserved good-will generated from Lootera by doing this film! Some critics are now questioning whether her turn in Lootera was a fluke and only because of the director's ability! How unfortunate.

Akshay was good, loved his style, looked like a complete boss. Though his voice did irritate me at times, sounded more funny at times then intimidating.

Imran I can't stand, but gotta give props where it's due, thought he did very well in the role he played.

Sonakshi was good, she was hilarious in the first half hour. The final scene where she is crying/shouting at Akshay however, she sounded like she was possessed, 😆

Onto the movie itself, I enjoyed the first half, thought it was pretty good actually, the 2nd half however was beyond shit, it was too slow and had barely any story going forward, the ending was also pretty rubbish, they tried to recreate the magic from Ajay/iEmraan by showing the highlights of Akshay/Imran journey at the end but failed big time,

Overall I'd give the movie 4/10. All of them marks are based on the first half, the 2nd half doesn't even deserve rating, I was having second thoughts on watching this as it had such bad reviews but because of Akshay and the fact that I loved the first OUATIM I gave it a shot, Ekta made a massive mistake not casting Emraan in this, it was dhoomed from day one..