REVIEW: KABAAD THE COIN

Producers: Babban Negi, Meena Negi

Director: Varadaraj Swami

Star Cast- Vivaan Shah , Zoya Afroz , Atul Srivastava , Abhishek Bajaj, Imran Hasnee Yashasri Masurkar, Bhagwan Tiwari and Shahzad Ahmed

Genre: Thriller

OTT Platform: MX Player

Rating- *** (Three)

Poignant Ode to love!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Kabaad the Coin begins with a boy named Bandhan (Vivaan Shah) living in a slum area of Mumbai, who, working at the junk gets five hundred years old Ram Siya precious gold coins issued in the era of Emperor Akbar.

He is filled with self-confidence. Meanwhile, Bandhan falls in love with Roma, a hi fi sexy society girl, and expresses his love by giving a gold coin to Roma.

Roma who is not only a drug addict but also smokes cigarettes and drinks a lot realizes that these are the precious gold coins, and instigated by her villainous boyfriend Sam, she pretends to love the naive Bandhan to ferret out coins from him.

Eventually, Roma falls in love with Bandhan. The film is on the whole, an interesting story of money, love and deception.

Vivaan Shah , as Bandhan, is good as an actor and invests his role as the down trodden kabadi guy with a lot of fervor and lives his role effortlessly though he looks mismatched with Roma who looks a trite older to him especially in the romantic scenes.

Zoya Afroz, who has appeared in a couple of C grade flops earlier is expressive and also exudes glamour in an abundant measure.

It however flummoxes me how on earth does Roma fall in love with the lowly kabadi cum house help within a day of meeting him when he comes to her house to take way her old fridge but then I suppose that is what is called cinematic liberty in Bollywood.

Yashasree Masurkar shines in her tiny role as the poor girl Savita Waghmare who aspires to marry her childhood friend Bandhan while Bhagwan Tiwari is good, as usual in the role of the tough Inspector Lokhande like he has always been.

Atul Srivastav as the father of Savita is a seasoned performer who lends a lot of credibility to his role.

Abhishek Bajaj fails to deliver and all he does is grimace like a villain and hardly emotes. Imran Hasnee also does not get scope to enact as the gang lord Badshah Khan.

Music by Sandesh Shandilya is soothing as well as melodious and the song Pyar Ka Kabadi sung by Kailash Kher lingers in your mid long after you set out to watch it, while the background music by Bappi Tutul is brilliant.

Cinematography by Hari Nair is of top quality, as usual. Though the plot by Shahzad Ahmed is not dew fresh and has been narrated a lot of times earlier, what makes the film interesting to watch is the way the director Varadaraj Swami has set out to treat it with a down to earth approach.

To sum up, Kabadi The Coin is sincere film which sets out to deliver a poignant message that crime does not pay in the long run and is also an ode to pure love.