Halka paani ya bhadkeela?" is the question with which the friendship between Raja (Saif Ali Khan) and Rudra (Jimmy Shergill) begins. The setting is a wedding party and Rudra is asking Raja if he is fine with the soft drink he has just been offered or if he wants something flashier, more potent. Raja opts for the latter, and he certainly gets it over the course of this noisy film. After a few hours of bonding over liquor, banter and an item girl, the two men fight off an attack on the wedding house, and so their fate is sealed: they are subsequently drawn into the politics and mafia wars of the UP heartland. It is as if the simple act of drinking "bhadkeela paani" has engendered events that turn a regular, job-seeking boy into a hero, a goonda or a "political commando" (depending on your perspective).
The opening credits of Bullett Raja are all about colour and flash, and that's mostly what the film turns out to be too. Much has already been said about Tigmanshu Dhulia, a director of grounded hinterland sagas with well-written characters, making a no-holds-barred commercial movie, a "potboiler". Normally I'm wary about such classifications, but after watching Bullett Raja I had to concede the point. This is a clear homage to the mainstream Hindi movie of the 1970s and '80s.
There is a Sholay reference early on ("Hamesha do kyon hote hain?" grumbles a head villain whose men have been vanquished by the heroes), and the very presence of Gulshan Grover, Chunky Pandey and Raj Babbar (all of whom are well used, with Pandey hamming it up from behind red-tinted glasses) is a reminder of less sophisticated masala movies from times past. Bullett Raja reaches for the tone of those films without trying to be a cheeky commentary on them; there is even a scene - filmed straight, without irony - involving the death of a loved one and the hero swearing vengeance through the flames of a funeral pyre.
The world shown here is one where modernity and older, more primal ways of life feed off each other. Feudal lines of power are very much in place, people in high positions spend time in jail purely for convenience and continue fixing deals - using Skype - while in their prison clothes; they speak in the salty dialects of their home town but nonchalantly break into English when you least expect it; meetings involving smartly dressed businessmen and politicos with their laptops take place in what seems the middle of a jungle. People, regardless of their background, can be many things. Raja's father, proud of their Brahmin ancestry, doesn't want him to work in a hotel, washing dishes - but later we are also reminded that "Brahmin rootha toh Ravana".
All this might have added up to subtle commentary on the many faces, divides and possibilities within a society, but that isn't the sort of film Bullett Raja is trying to be. Unlike in Dhulia's more restrained (halka?) Paan Singh Tomar - also about a man who crosses over to the other side of the law - escape is a real possibility here; a commercial movie-making tradition requires the hero to be a survivor. Raja has spent his life doing "aafat se aashiqui", he tells us in the beginning. Expect him to do more of the same if there is a sequel, and to be as bullet-resistant as ever.
The opening credits of Bullett Raja are all about colour and flash, and that's mostly what the film turns out to be too. Much has already been said about Tigmanshu Dhulia, a director of grounded hinterland sagas with well-written characters, making a no-holds-barred commercial movie, a "potboiler". Normally I'm wary about such classifications, but after watching Bullett Raja I had to concede the point. This is a clear homage to the mainstream Hindi movie of the 1970s and '80s.
There is a Sholay reference early on ("Hamesha do kyon hote hain?" grumbles a head villain whose men have been vanquished by the heroes), and the very presence of Gulshan Grover, Chunky Pandey and Raj Babbar (all of whom are well used, with Pandey hamming it up from behind red-tinted glasses) is a reminder of less sophisticated masala movies from times past. Bullett Raja reaches for the tone of those films without trying to be a cheeky commentary on them; there is even a scene - filmed straight, without irony - involving the death of a loved one and the hero swearing vengeance through the flames of a funeral pyre.
Also Read
Is it a good potboiler though? I'm not sure. Though entertaining in patches, this is an uneven, unfocused film. Characters flit in and out of sight, there are promising but not fully realised roles for Ravi Kishan and Vidyut Jamwal (as Raja's nemeses), and Sonakshi Sinha's Mitali - the love interest - is no more than a random presence. Some scene transitions are jarring, there are discontinuities and gaps in character development, and the action sequences are confusing and go by too quickly, before one can register what is happening.
The world shown here is one where modernity and older, more primal ways of life feed off each other. Feudal lines of power are very much in place, people in high positions spend time in jail purely for convenience and continue fixing deals - using Skype - while in their prison clothes; they speak in the salty dialects of their home town but nonchalantly break into English when you least expect it; meetings involving smartly dressed businessmen and politicos with their laptops take place in what seems the middle of a jungle. People, regardless of their background, can be many things. Raja's father, proud of their Brahmin ancestry, doesn't want him to work in a hotel, washing dishes - but later we are also reminded that "Brahmin rootha toh Ravana".
All this might have added up to subtle commentary on the many faces, divides and possibilities within a society, but that isn't the sort of film Bullett Raja is trying to be. Unlike in Dhulia's more restrained (halka?) Paan Singh Tomar - also about a man who crosses over to the other side of the law - escape is a real possibility here; a commercial movie-making tradition requires the hero to be a survivor. Raja has spent his life doing "aafat se aashiqui", he tells us in the beginning. Expect him to do more of the same if there is a sequel, and to be as bullet-resistant as ever.