The first few minutes of Dishkiyaoon feel straight out of a James Hadley Chase based film noir. A young gangster narrating the story of his willing descent into the world of crime to a senior, trading words of metaphorical wisdom while playing a nonchalant game of snakes and ladders. But the magic wears down real fast, starting right from Sunny Deol's hackneyed Haryanvi accent, to Harman Baweja's continued lifelessness.
Yes, 6 years after his disastrous debut, Baweja's comeback could not have been worse. In acting skills he is still no better than fellow star-kid Neil Nitin Mukesh. Actually worse, because Mukesh was at least able to carry off the much more intelligent Johnny Gaddar with his two expressions. In Dishkiyaoon, Harman is Vicky Kartoos, who wants to rise to the top of the Mumbai underworld as painlessly as possible. Juxtaposed against him is his mentor Mota Tony who quite swears by the gun. More eccentric gangsters with funny names abound. There is Rocky Chu.... (who thinks he looks like Sanjay Dutt), Khalifaa (who is proud of the fact that he does not carry a gun), Lakwa (obviously the polio afflicted one) and Gujjar (yes, everyone is proud of the caste card now). Dishkiyaoon is about Vicky finding his destiny, along with numerous plot twists, sudden homicides, along with the mandatory love angle.
Fancy names do not make an interesting movie, a good script definitely does. That is problem number one with Dishkiyaoon. While the premise is interesting, there is absolutely no character development. People just pop up to mouth punch lines and disappear. The treatment of the movie is curiously reminiscent of the recent 100 cr dud, Gunday- flat, emotionless, boring. People think any gangster movie works, such is the popularity of anarchists in today's world. Good acting does make up for script weakness sometimes. That is problem number two for Dishkiyaoon. Prashant Narayanan as Mota Tony and Anand Tiwari as Rocky Chu offer some redemption but it is too little. Baweja flaunts his torso, indulges in some free running, but that's about all he can do. To quote Yoda, the NNM force is still strong with him. Even Sunny Deol's short presence does nothing to improve things, plus he does NOT get to throw a punch. Really, this might be the first such movie that he has not raised his 2.5 kilo hand.
Girlfriend Bipasha Basu might have been moved to tears by beau Baweja's acting, but for the audience, the tears are entirely for a different reason. The gulf between him and Hritik is even wider than what it was 6 years back. And while the material was interesting, débutant director Sanamjit Sarkar Talwar has probably bitten off more than he can chew. In the hands of say Sriram Raghavan, this could have been sumptuous fare. 5/10
