REVIEW: SITAPUR THE CITY OF GANGSTERS

Producer- Ravi Sudha Choudhary

Director- Mobeen Warsi

Star Cast- Ravi Sudha Choudhary, Aparna Mallick, Aanchal Pandey, Gaurav Kumar, Anil Rastogi, Shalu Singh and Jeetendra Dwivedi

Genre- Crime

OTT Platform- MX Player

Rating- **1/2

Yet Another Flick on Gangsters!

Jyothi Venkatesh

At the outset, it is yet another routine plot full of crime and murders at the drop of a hat. As usual, there is a lot of interference with the cops when they try to book the culprits and bring about justice.

The biggest problem with the film is that it tends to be repetitive with far too many characters popping in and out at frequent intervals to be able to properly justify the plot.

Dev Singh Rana (Ravi Sudha Choudhary), who is the college president, is incited to get into a fight with some bullies in his college itself, which later leads to a fierce life-long enmity.

Since the bullies have a political background, a series of murders start taking place and Dev Singh Rana becomes a potential suspect in the eye of the police controlled by the politicians as there is an increasing spree of murders in the village.

The film starts with a conflict within college, the fight progresses with a renowned politician in the city and then it culminates with a collision with the Mafia.

Dev Singh Rana, who has not only produced the film but also sing a song besides writing the screenplay as well as the meaningful lyrics for the songs, plays the role of a pious college student turned gangster with aplomb, though at the same time he is quite ill at ease in the romantic sequences where he is required to sing and dance with his girl friend.

Ravi Sudha Choudhary , who bears a very striking resemblance to not only the actor Sonu Sood but also singer Sonu Nigam, has saddled himself with many a role in the film including that of a Creative Director lending a proof to the adage too many cooks spoil the broth.

Aparna Mallick as his tough girl friend Preeti does a good job as the informer of the cops who initially traps Dev but in the end automatically falls in love with him.

Anil Rastogi lends dignity to his negative role as a Minister Abhay Narayan Tiwari and tucks in a well wrapped performance while Gaurav Kumar shines in an out and out negative role as the power hungry Karan, who hangs out with the Minister and is the ultimate target of Dev Singh Rana. Sahlu Singh, as the S.P Saahiba is stereotyped as the senior police officer always wearing a grin and chasing the gangsters in the line of her duty.

Aanchal Pandey as Dev’s first girlfriend is not able to register her presence fully as the poor young thing is shot dead half way through perhaps for Preeti to emerge in the scene as Dev’s girlfriend.

Direction by Mobeen Warsi is good but I wish he had edited out the long running time since the film has a runtime of almost two and a half hours.

Music by Raushan Pandey and lyrics by Ravi Sudha Choudhary deserve praise, especially the lilting song Tum Mujhe Aise Na Dekh Mujhe Sharam Aati Hai and the effective background music by Narendra Singh.

To sum up it is yet another flick on gangsters which is centering around the gangsters and is as old as the hills!