Chalo Agra, not for a tour through the Taj Mahal though. Instead, check out the Life Paradiso of a shoe-maker and his dear darling daughter who reside in a pretty house. Yonkers bonkes, be warned then, ugly things happen
.A mega-chiched blood-curdling revenge melodrama ensues. That’s Bhoomi directed by Omung Kumar. Sad to say but there isn’t a sign of umang or tarang in this hmmm-comeback vehicle for Sanjay Dutt.
Curiously, the actor had gone through a similar grisly vendetta spree in Mahesh Manjrekar’s Pitaah (2002), sourced from the Samuel L Jackson role in Hollywood’s A Time to Kill. However, since public memory is conjectured to be short, why not go through the same rasp-gasp-kill-those-evil-asps-route again? Pain.
Sanjay Dutt And Aditi Rao Hydari In Bhoomi
In fact, elements from Liam Neeson’s Taken series can also be detected. More fatally, Omung Kumar whom you might remember as the digdarshak of Mary Kom, doesn’t display any legible signature of his own, hacking out scene after scene without any pointers towards an original style or spleen.
What to do? Now, you’re stuck with shoewalla Arun Sachdeva (Duttji) and beti Bhoomi, (Aditi Rao Hydari) affectionately called betu at times. Time chimes. She’s to be married off to a chocolate bar (Sidhant Gupta) quite soon. Enter a gargoyle goon (Sharad Kelkar) from the vicinity. Accompanied by a cabal of creepos, he has nothing better to do than to issue threats and harass apni Bhoomi betu. In the event, you won’t be awarded a merit certificate for guessing that she’s gang-raped.
Next: Her dad transforms into the red-eyed Sanjay Dutt of yore, gnashing his teeth, bashing the baddies and even delivering an ironical monologue in the courtroom, where you bet the due process of law is twisted into pretzel-shape. To keep in sync with today’s times of women empowernment, feminist asides and lines of dialogue are a must, highlighted in the over-the-top drama’s wrap-up. The trouble is that these amount to mere tokenism.
Aditi Rao Hydari As Bhoomi
Throughout the
writing is amateurish, what with the Gargoyle gurgling to his prey, “Hey hide
and seek is for kids. It’s time now to hide and cheeekh.” Mercifully he didn’t add “It’s time to
disco”, never mind if Sunny Leone pops up to do the writhe stuff to a lyric
going, “Trippy trippy.” Yippeee? No siree.
About the only
segments of this uninspired and unspiring Bollywood product, are the ones which
depict a firelog warmth between the father and his betu. These moments
are carried out by Sanjay Dutt (yeah, he’s even shown getting a jet black
dye-job) with an emotional charge. For the rest of the way, alas, he doesn’t
surprise you with his performance at all. Conceded, he still projects a
volatile screen presence but his dialogue pitch continues to be inflexibly flat
and inexpressive.
Aditi Rao Hydari With Sidhant Gupta In Bhoomi
Aditi Rao Hydari is okey-dokey. Like it or not Sharad Kelkar despite a stock-in-trade part of the super-villain, manages to slice strong acting chops.
Technically, Polish cinematographer Artur Zurawski at least invests the visuals with a professional glow, and moves the camera agilely.
Clearly, the
subject of rape requires to be narrated with knuckle-hard realism and
authenticity (like Pink did). Here the topic becomes just another pretext for a
hero to take off on an I’m-mad-as-hell-and-won’t-take-it-any-more action
rampage.
Sharad Kelkar In His Villainous Avatar In Bhoomi
To be sure, you
want to see more of Sanjay Dutt on screen, portraying characters commensurate
with his age. Frankly, this project was an error of judgement.
Free advice:
Skip Bhoomi unless you’re in the mood to feel extra-gloomy.
Image Source: youtube/t-series