BABUMOSHAI BANDOOKBAAZ—GUNS, GUTS AND GLORY GALORE

Take one generous portion of a rural setting. Add a big dash of Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a gangster avatar. Mix well. Now, add one cup each of expletives and tamanchas. Add some freshly chopped, funny supporting characters. And, finish off with a dash of intimacy. Bake at a high temperature and garnish with themes of love, lust, betrayal and most importantly, revenge! What do you have on your plate? The answer is NOT Gangs of Wasseypur but Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s latest, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz.

Still reeling under the big blanket of praises for his superlative performance in Mom and the excitement building up leading to the forthcoming Munna Michael, Nawaz is all set to treat his fans with yet another crime drama in the form of Kushan Nandy’s Babumoshai Bandookbaaz. The trailer opens with Nawaz sitting in a squatted position, wearing a dhoti with a transistor in his hand, defecating in the open and that’s how you’re thrown into Babu’s world at the drop of a hat. Babu claims to be working on an outsourcing basis for ‘Yamraj’. He’s rash and ruthless. He uses and he abuses. But since our contract killer is human after all, he falls in love as well. Babu’s boat seems to be sailing just fine until his associate betrays him and leaves him with nothing—nothing except an aim to seek revenge.

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again; 2017 belongs to Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Half way into the year and he already has films like Raees, Mom, Munna Michael and Babumoshai Bandookbaaz in his kitty—all as different as chalk and cheese. The man is literally everywhere. His journey from just doing blink-and-miss roles to a film like Raees where audiences whistled and clapped at his entry even though he was at loggerheads with someone like Shah Rukh Khan is both inspiring and heart-warming and speaks volumes of his quality of work. Babumoshai Bandookbaaz could be an important milestone in this long journey for Nawaz.

At the helm of affairs for this one is Kushan Nandy, known (or not) for duds such as Hum Dum (2005) and 88 Antop Hill (2003). All we can say is that he couldn’t have asked for a better talent than Nawaz to help him establish his foot in the industry. The pressure will be unimaginable for Nandy and we hope he delivers—unlike what we see in the trailer of the film. Even though we’re big fans of crime thrillers set in the rural badlands, this one just fails to generate the interest. The choppy editing style seems all over the place and just doesn’t work for us. On the other hand, the characters seem to be interesting and generate a decent amount of curiosity. Speaking of characters, the film also boasts of a bunch of talented actors like Bidita Bag, Murli Sharma and Divya Dutta amongst others. Think of films like Omkara and Gangs of Wasseypur and then think how it’s always the supporting characters who bring the flavour to these desi-gangster films.

On the whole, even though Nawaz has us our attention with this one, the trailer somewhat fails to live up to expectations. Were we expecting too much? Maybe, maybe not. Babumoshai Badookbaaz is slated to release on 25 August 2017 which means that it’ll be clashing at the box-office with Sidharth Malhotra and Jacquliene Fernandez’s A Gentleman. Both the films seem to be extremely different from each other and if marketed well, we wouldn’t be surprised if Babumoshai Bandookbaaz knocks the big budgeted A Gentleman out of the park.

Produced by Kiran Shyam Shroff and Ashmith Kunder, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz hits the screens on 25 August 2017.