Indo- Pak lip- lock. How lovely!
First, let’s welcome Humaima Malick, Pakistan’s “acting” actress who’s capable of more than just simpering. She’s bold, beautiful and may well trigger a second round of hyperventilating columns and discussions about size zero, lizard belly and the perks of plastic surgery. I’m sure that Ms Malick, after winning accolades and awards for her serious screaming part in the 2011 Bol, was excited about gyrating under a shower of crisp currency notes in a dance bar, and could not wait for Emraan Hashmi to smooch her. So she rises to apply seductive suction. Good for her.
And good for us, this variation of lips that lock on to Emraan’s every time he’s alone with a lassie. In any case, he’s looking so bloated that he may actually be having some self- doubt. So it’s a win- win that she jumped him.
Apart from this variety show there’s not much to recommend Raja Natwarlal , a film that purportedly has a heist on its mind but isn’t needlessly perturbed by the fact that its main characters are so lackadaisical about it that they’d rather the plot went to hell and they were left alone to canoodle in front of the camera.
That’s mostly what happens.
Raja ( Emraan Hashmi), who acquires the sobriquet Natwarlal much later in the film, operates with his badebhaiyya- like- partner, Raghav ( Deepak Tijori), in pulling off small- time cons in Mumbai. A sleight of the hand here, a vanishing briefcase there. A push here, a pocket picked there. And so it goes, Raghav taking his daily earnings to his wife and son, and Raja throwing it all on the dancing Ziya ( Humaima Malick). A Gujarati businessman always outshowers Raja, and Ziya has to, perforce, twirl around him. Raja won’t have this. Not his lissome Ziya in infinitesimal blouses that are beacons of hope. So he eavesdrops on a conversation about a money transaction and despite Raghav’s reluctance and a cautionary tale about the great retired con, Yogi, they set out to set a trap. All too quickly they are happy lakhpatis. But the money they have decamped with belongs to Vardha Yadav ( Kay Kay Menon), who runs his ill- gotten multi- national business empire from Cape Town, South Africa. Vardha won’t tolerate anyone conning him, so he sets assassins after Raghav and Raja. You know which one goes, and which one’s left standing to avenge his bade bhai’s death.
But Raja neither has the calibre nor the wherewithal to do it alone. So he seeks out Yogi ( Paresh Rawal) in Dharamsala. Yogi is uninterested till he hears that Raghav’s been killed. He agrees to lead the charge against Vardha, and recruits other team- members without any ado. Raja Natwarlal is now in Hustle mode, as in the British TV series. Unfortunately, the minor players are not fleshed out as characters though each one carries potential because of the actors’ acting skills. Instead, all focus is on cops harassing Ziya in Mumbai, and Raja who is now posing as Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, the real Natwarlal.
A “hook” is found — Vardha is crazy about cricket and had once unsuccessfully bid for a cricket team. A cricket team will be sold to him. We are not privy to any scheming- sheaming, but it seems there is a stratagem as decided by Yogi, and a sub- stratagem as concocted by Raja. Bearing it all in good faith, we tumble from one interesting crisis to a preposterous solution.
The success of the con depends heavily on both our and Vardha’s credulity. We’ve paid good money, so we go along, brushing away mundane questions like how they get so much money to make several trips to Cape Town, take a leisurely cruise, live in luxurious hotels, hire cars, clothes, actors, et cetera. Our hope rests on Vardha who seems smart and is often in deep thought. Brooding, we think, over how unconvincing this Mithilesh is. Alas! He too goes along. So at the end, his main- lutgaya, barbaad- ho- gaya moment serves him right.
Kunal Deshmukh’s Raja Natwarlal lives in two different worlds. One world is the real one where its supporting cast dwells, trying to act and breathe some life into their barelysketched characters and the film. This one holds potential — the possibility of some real drama and thrill. Unfortunately, Deshmukh is only interested in cashing- in on yet another outing of Emraan Hashmi with a new girl. So he ignores a fine ensemble — Paresh Rawal, Kay Kay Menon, Sumit Nijhawan, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub — as well as the plotting of the heist, and devotes the bulk of his time and energy to creating an artificial, made- up garish world to encase Emraan and Humaima.
The best thing about heist films are audacious schemes that energise the audience and the film’s characters, and how they are eventually pulled off — sometimes with brazenness, at others, when the kinks and quirks of characters inevitably upset plans, with a slick, quick- witted sally. We wait expectantly for things to go wrong, or just crafty. But Raja Natwarlal is not just low on substance, it’s also very low on style. It’s neither smart, nor does it have much drama.
Emraan Hashmi and Humaima Malick operate in a world where their characters dare not spoil their star persona and looks. They both play their parts like stars usually play any character that’s thrust upon them.
What’s sad is that grifter- turnedsuave swindler is the sort of role that’s up Emraan Hashmi’s street. A few years ago he would have played his role with his trademark nonchalance. There’s some posturing, but mostly he goes for melodrama instead of chutzpah. That turns the film into an extended ludicrous affair. He inspires more awe when he kisses, than when he’s up to his shenanigans.
Kay Kay to some extent and Paresh Rawal to a large extent try to do some acting, but it’s totally lost on director Deshmukh and his crew who seem riveted by the Pakistani in their midst, and the lips she likes to suck on. She may be new to them. But we’ve been there, done that.