‘D’

Director: Vishram Sawant

Cast: Randeep Hooda, Rukhsar, Chunky Pandey, Ishaa Koppikar, Yashpal Sharma, Sushant Singh, Goga Kapoor, Jeeva

7/10

‘A’ It’s a Ram Gopal Varma film. ‘B’. It’s a Mumbai underworld film. ‘C’. It’s repetitious, just like the rat-a-tat gangster gunfire. And ‘D’, it...is. It is all of ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’, but it’s still ‘D’.

‘A’ is for All, all of us know that it’s another of Ramu Bhai’s chhokras, this time Vishram ? even the name sounds like one of the laidback goons in his films ? Sawant, but the Bhai’s stamp is all over, though this one is stylistically straight and linear, no hijinks in the editing or cinematography or item song, but maintains a distinctive manner.

‘B’ is for Bhai World, arrey bhai, it’s still the most happening event on the news pages and the crime reports on television everyday and there is this stark realism in the execution, so unlike the glitzy treatment in the other gangster masala films like Musafir or Kaante. And, remember, Ramu Big Bhai is talking about the same ‘role model’ in this organised, corporatised underworld, and in handling this ‘same’ genre, the other filmmakers are comparatively just Chhota Shakeels or Chhota Sanjays, kya?

‘C’ is for Company rules, and one of the imperatives is that in this dhanda, your friend is your biggest enemy. Profits are the proof of the pudding ? otherwise, khallaas.

‘D’ is for ‘D’, the first prequel in Indian cinema history. Ramu has made Shiva, too, in the earliest part of his dhanda, but this falls between Satya and Company as a trilogy. You may wonder if it’s just one of those luminous lines Ramu dishes out to the press, but feel the skin of the three films, and you will agree.

Satya was what it was to live in the midst of metropolis mayhem and how the ordinary citizen is sucked into the whirlpool. ‘D’ extends the Satya impact on the ordinary citizen who takes to arms in self-defence in the survival-of-the-fittest jungle to the ‘D’ bystander torn apart between the cop and the criminal and coldbloodedly observes that for a Dubai-returned mechanic now jobless, who has a solid heart to go with a “danger” brain, this is as good an employment option as any, and he has to, in fact, put in cleverly and politically correct applications to his prospective employers and be interviewed in like fashion. ‘D’ ends on the note of this dhanda being just like any MNC, everything being a matter of business.

And then came Company, which showed the best in the business running it with perfect professionalism, applying their own management mantras and corporate criteria, complete with chairmen and managing directors and the vertical/horizontal hierarchy and departmentalisation, the works.

What one cherishes in a RGV film is his truly gutsy, in-your-face reference points in the underworld and politics, including his provocatively sly denials. Is only Pather Panchali and Bhuvan Shome, then, realism cinema? It’s the acting part in ‘D’ which is not particularly distinguished. Randeep Hooda’s Deshu is differently done, but often he looks more like a DJ than a Don.

Even if ‘D’ comes before ‘C’ here, and Deshu between Bhiku Mhatre (Satya) and Chandu Nagre (Company), it’s an ‘A’, for arresting cinema.

Anil Grover