Marjaavaan

MARJAAVAAN is the story of unrequited love, set against the backdrop of the underbelly of Mumbai. In one of the poorer areas of Mumbai, Narayan Anna (Nassar) calls the shots. He has an army of men at his disposal and the most faithful of them is Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra). As an infant, he was found abandoned and it was Narayan Anna who raised him. Raghu is faithful and dedicated and always in the good books of Narayan Anna.

Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra) works for Anna (Nassar) who has a dwarf son Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh). Raghu is loyal to Anna & Vishnu hates him because he isn't daddy's favourite. Enters Zoya (Tara Sutaria) who cannot speak but no one can stay silent in a Milap Zaveri film, even she gets to stay dialogues. Zoya, from Kashmir, is in a quest to search for kids who can sing in Mumbai's slum area. Hmm!

Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra) is a loyal lieutenant to mafia don Narayan Anna (Nassar). His father's preference for Raghu isn't tolerated by Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh), Anna's three feet tall son. He suffers from severe daddy issues and blames Raghu for his shortcomings. When a young Samaritan, Zoya (Tara Sutaria), who incidentally can't speak, comes to their basti to teach kids music, Raghu falls in love with her.

An orphan Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra) sheltered by Narayan Anna (Nassar) a water tank mafia, grows up to be Anna's most trusted favorite. Anna's son Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh) a three-foot-tall midget couldn't stand this camaraderie between his father and Raghu. The complex ridden Vishnu is desperately searching for an opportunity to outplay Raghu and gain proximity with his father.

Marjaavaan belongs to the 80s. We saw its clones and the clones of its clones back in the day and suffered for it. With the 90s new wave, we had hoped that the decade and its particular brand of cinema will forever rest in peace. Anil Kapoor did a few films like this, as did Sunny Deol and Jackie Shroff. It seems now, almost three decades later, it is Sidharth Malhotra's turn.

The world of Marjaavaan is ignorant of the word subtle. The Hindu villain wears a striking tilak. The Muslim sidekick sports a white skull cap. The mute, angelic heroine stays pristine in pastels whereas the golden-hearted prostitute's business card is a navel and a nose-ring.

No spoilers ahead. Only 2-and-a-half-hours of torture. Just before the interval plate takes over the curved screen at the theatre, a bullet pierces through her torso, rips out from the other side, as a gush of blood pours out of her mouth - as though she'd just bitten into a ripe lychee. Except, we're puking blood too. And some of it is coming out of our ears and eyes, as well.

"Todunga bhi or todke jodunga bhi" (I will break you and I will repair you too). With those bombastic words, Sidharth Malhotra, clad in a leather jacket in the Mumbai heat, proceeds to pound a gang of goons and simultaneous bandage their wounds (we kid you not).

"Main maaroonga toh mar jayega tu, dobaara janam lene se darr jayega tu." This line that the hero fires at the villain in Marjaavaan's climactic moments comes from an arsenal of rhyming bombast that he uses from the opening minutes of this exhausting film. Thankfully, there is an arsenal of adjectives in the English language to match his weaponry. Dated, loud, cliche-ridden, preachy, unimaginative, boring, flat - that is what Marjaavaan is.

Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra) and Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh) are the top contenders of Mumbai don Narayan Anna's (Nassar) seat. While Anna adopted Raghu, Vishnu is his biological son. From illegal water tankers to prostitution racket, the gang is into all sorts of business, but wait till our lead boy falls in love with a mute girl Zoya (Tara Sutaria).

Raised as the right-hand man of a tanker mafia in Mumbai, Raghu's (Sidharth Malhotra) life changes when he sees Zoya (Tara Sutaria). But this love story is probably destined for doom.

In Marjaavaan, which is anything but a film to die for, writer-director Milap Milan Zaveri whips up a stale masala concoction that transports the audience right back to a Bollywood era gone by. The turgid thriller is set in the Mumbai underworld, a fact that is grandly announced via a voiceover at the very outset, but neither the situations nor the locales in which the predictable action unfolds look remotely real.