‘O’Romeo’ review: A same-old yarn about swaggering gangsters and bloody revenge

Vishal Bhardwaj’s latest film draws on a tall tale from Mumbai underworld lore. O’Romeo is based on Sapna Didi, one of the stories in S Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai. The chapter is based on gangland personage Hussain Ustara’s account of Ashraf, who decides to kill no less than Dawood Ibrahim after he orders her husband’s murder.

In Zaidi’s telling, Ustara, having fallen for Ashraf, helps her carry out her revenge. Ashraf, who adopts the name Sapna, gets very close to killing Ibrahim, but is eventually slain by the gangster. This most likely apocryphal story is reproduced without scepticism or irony.

Zaidi writes in all seriousness about Sapna, “She knew the Mumbai underworld like the back of her hand and was creating unprecedented fear in the minds of Dawood’s many henchmen. She had begun to play a big role in busting several gambling dens and dance bars in the city as well.”

Bhardwaj had bought the rights to the story years ago, but before he could proceed, the heavily spiced series Ek Thi Begum came out. Bhardwaj’s eventual film, which he has co-written with Rohan Narula, makes several changes to Sapna Didi, using the source material to deliver an operatic experience of love and carnage.

While set in 1995 and 1996, O’Romeo appears to be taking place once upon a time in Mumbai. Ustara (Shahid Kapoor) is an ageing, guitar-strumming urban cowboy, the favourite of sex workers, especially Julie (Disha Patani), and the feared leader of a loyal posse led by Chhotu (Hussain Dalal).

Supposedly in hiding after having run afoul of the gangster Jalal (Avinash Tiwary), Ustara is holed up on a boat along with his fanboys and his profanity-loving grandmother (Farida Jalal). Ustara sets foot on land only to carry out hit jobs for the Intelligence Bureau officer Ismail (Nana Patekar).

When Afshan (Triptii Dimri) approaches Ustara for a Kill Bill-style assignment that targets Jalal and the other men responsible for the death of her husband Mehboob (Vikrant Massey), Ustara pretends to be disinterested. But the gorgeous widow melts the shaving-blade wielding toughie.

O’Romeo initially appears to be parodying the earnestness of its source material. The swagger is slathered on thick; the musical interludes splattered with blood; the references and borrowings liberal. The gratuitousness is loud and proud.

Ustara’s liquor comes out of a bottle shaped like an AK-47. In a cinema hall, numerous baldies drop like flies while Madhuri Dixit writhes on the screen in the song Dhak Dhak.

It’s always futile to reconcile the movie that you actually want to watch with the movie that the director has decided to give you. Rather than a meta-narrative that is delivered entirely in quote marks and watched through raised eyebrows, O’Romeo turns out to be a regular, literal-minded underworld fantasy.

Not for the first time has Vishal Bhardwaj promised something unusual but doled out the same-old film, only with better packaging. Far too lengthy and indulgent for a wispy and increasingly ludicrous plot, the 178-minute movie moves along on the strength of compelling characters, nihilistic humour and soulful music.

The atypical casting has some delights. Classical singer and occasional actor Rahul Deshpande is a great fit as the cop Pathare, one of Afshan’s targets. Deshpande sings in O’Romeo too, and beautifully.

Farida Jalal gleefully destroys her lovable granny image. Nana Patekar is typically entertaining as the no-nonsense Ismail. Tamannaah turns up in a cameo as Jalal’s long-suffering wife Rabia. Aroona Irani is somewhere in the crowd too.

The film takes playing to the gallery very seriously. Various leading characters are accompanied by a chorus as they slay or woo. Bhardwaj’s soundtrack includes the ballad Ishq Ka Fever, in which Gulzar write about the ailment to which Ustara has willingly succumbed.

Lovesick in Afshan’s presence but deadly with his blades, Ustara is as much of an archetype as is the mournful, vengeful Afshan. While there are no surprises in Shahid Kapoor’s performance, Triptii Dimri is a graceful, haunting presence.

Avinash Tiwary struggles to maintain Jalal’s fearsome reputation – always a challenge since Jalal is strutting about as a bullfighter in Spain while on the lam. At least Jalal’s nonsensical scenes remove any doubts that O’Romeo is based on a true story.

The movie’s most original idea is that music is balm as well as salvation. Having led viewers over extremely well-trodden territory, Bhardwaj designs a coda that achieves a semblance of delicacy in a decidedly indelicate tale of bloody slaughter.