FILM REVIEWS SACHIN CHATTE
Film: O Romeo
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Triptii Dimri, Nana Patekar
Directed by: Vishal Bharadwaj
Duration: 2 hours 59 minutes
Rating: * *
Vishal Bhardwaj returns to the big screen after Patakha (2018), although his last outing, Khufiya (2023), was released on Netflix. O Romeo has ambition and style, but at nearly three hours, it lacks the substance required to sustain that runtime and offers little that feels new.
Bhardwaj has always excelled at adaptations and even wrote a brilliant screenplay for Talvar (2015), which he did not direct. O Romeo is inspired by the life of Hussain Ustara, chronicled in the book ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai’ by Hussain Zaidi. However, this film has all the trappings of a stereotypical Bollywood potboiler, with no real novelty — from the opening scene to the closing shot, and everything in between.
But let’s start at the beginning. Shahid Kapoor plays Ustara, a hitman who uses a straight razor as his weapon of choice and has racked up more than a few kills in his lifetime. He sports a cowboy hat despite living on a barge docked along the Mumbai shoreline. His henchmen ensure a steady stream of women to cater to his libido. Essentially, he’s like Kabir Singh — but make it murderous instead of medical.
In an early scene, Inspector Khan (Nana Patekar) assigns him the task of eliminating a film personality. Ustara arrives at an art deco theatre armed with a generous supply of ustaras — straight razors. Throats are slit, cheeks slashed, skulls sliced open — all to the tune of ‘Dhak Dhak Karne Laga’. Our soon-to-be Romeo single-handedly dispatches what feels like a hundred uniformed men in that glorious single-screen theatre. The sequence makes it clear: realism has left the building.
One day, a young woman named Afsha (Triptii Dimri) turns up at his barge, inquiring about his fees — she has four men on her hit list. He initially laughs it off, but predictably, he becomes interested. The real issue, however, is pacing. Some scenes stretch endlessly, while others wrap up in record time. Songs appear at random, serving no
narrative purpose.
Afsha has a backstory: her husband (Vikrant Massey) was killed by his employers, and she seeks revenge. This could have been conveyed in a single line of dialogue. Instead, we are treated to an extended flashback in which a classical music-loving police inspector (played by singer Rahul Deshpande) and his associates rather dramatically shorten her husband’s life expectancy.
The chief antagonist is Jalal (Avinash Tiwary), who runs his crime syndicate from Spain. Tamannaah Bhatia plays Rabia, a recluse who spends her time painting canvases that would interest her therapist.
The protagonist’s arc — from womaniser to man hopelessly in love — unfolds on expected lines. Despite having vast resources at his disposal, he somehow cannot track Afsha down after she disappears of her own accord — the reasons for this are about as convincing as a politician’s apology. The characters lack consistency in both motive and action. In one scene, Afsha, who has never handled a gun before, casually robs someone of theirs and immediately attempts to shoot a man on her list.
The violence is so excessive that the filmmaker felt compelled to defend it on social media: “There is so much hatred, violence, and injustice in society — and I often feel powerless against it. It wounds me deeply. This pent-up anguish needed release,” he said. Fair enough — choosing to show violence explicitly, rather than merely imply it, is a deliberate creative decision. Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill also featured a revenge-driven woman and stylised brutality, but there it served a cohesive narrative purpose. Here, it largely feels like shock value.
The background score works overtime, with nearly every scene drenched in music. The cast performs competently — though most are operating comfortably within familiar territory.
O Romeo then has three hours of razors, romance, and slow-motion shootouts — stylish, yes, but substance? Not so much.
Magar Much Trouble in the Pool
Film: Tu Yaa Main
Cast: Adarsh Gaurav,
Shanaya Kapoor
Directed by: Bejoy Nambiar
Duration: 2 hours 25 minutes
Rating: * *1 / 2
Inspired by Ping Lumpraploeng’s Thai film The Pool (2018), Tu Yaa Main shifts between Mumbai and a 20-foot-deep swimming pool somewhere along the Goa–Mumbai highway. The story of a couple trapped in an empty pool with a crocodile for company offers a solid premise for a survival thriller.
As is often the case, the original is crisp and to the point, while the remake carries additional baggage. The Thai film ran for 90 minutes; this one stretches nearly an hour longer. The crocodile, meanwhile, takes its own sweet time before claiming centre stage.
The first half is devoted to romance; the second to the reptile. Maruti, aka Flow (Adarsh Gaurav), hails from Nalasopara and is a rapper from a modest background with dreams of making it big. His immediate aspiration, very Gen Z, is to gain more social media followers. At the other end of the spectrum is Avani, aka Ms. Vanity (Shanaya Kapoor), who boasts over 20 million followers and lives in a home with a private pool. Flow performs at an event where he meets Avani; they collaborate, and a romance blossoms — much to the disapproval of her manager, sister, and brother-in-law, who are overly concerned about the class divide. After all, he is a gully boy.
Considerable time is spent exploring the ups and downs of their relationship — mostly ups, until Avani discovers that her life is about to change. They decide to take a break and head to Goa on a motorbike trip. When the bike breaks down, a kind inspector (Shrikant Yadav) escorts them to a highway resort that happens to have the aforementioned deep pool.
Earlier, we see the reptile make a brief appearance — a nod to deforestation and unchecked construction driving wildlife from its natural habitat. In this case, it finds its way into the resort pool just as the water is drained, leaving the couple stranded inside. Strangely, the resort appears deserted except for a lone caretaker armed with an impressively waterproof mobile phone — though not impressive enough to save him once the crocodile strikes.
As the couple battles the crocodile, the cracks in their relationship surface, with each blaming the other for their predicament. After spending so long establishing the premise, the film cannot wrap things up quickly; subduing the crocodile takes considerable time — ‘magar tum na hote’. Once we are finally in the pool, there is genuine tension and entertainment, but getting there requires patience as the rich-girl-poor-boy romance unfolds at length.
Some silliness and clumsiness from the characters is expected to prolong the survival drama, and that’s acceptable — as long as the story itself doesn’t feel as stuck, like the protagonists.
Nambiar’s fondness for music is evident. In Shaitaan (2011), he staged a shootout to ‘Khoya Khoya Chand’. Here, the soundtrack features rehashed versions of Udit Narayan’s ‘Tum Hi Hamari Ho Manzil My Love’ from Yaara Dildara (1991) and Kishore Kumar’s delightful ‘Chori Chori Yun Jab’ from Paap Ki Duniya (1988).
Adarsh Gaurav slips comfortably into his role — whether rapping or confronting a crocodile, he remains at ease. The chemistry he shares with Shanaya Kapoor is a definite plus.
For those willing to wade through the slow build, this is a quirky survival thriller with a dash of modern-day romance.
