Of guns, bullets, that’s it!

Raja Mishra (Saif) to escape from a chase joins a baraat and runs into Rudra (Jimmy Shergill). They get drawn into the vortex of clan violence. Minutes after the new found relationship, Raja realises that Lallan (Chunkey) is playing the villain and members of the family including Chacha (Bharat Saxena) are in danger and thus begins the long list of shootouts that are handed out in the name of entertainment. The battle between Purushottam (Bharat Saxena) and Mithilesh Akandveer (Gaurav Jha) leads to bomb blasts and mass killings in the name of family feuds.

The scene shifts to Allahabad and the politics of the mainland. Two leading camps have Minister (Raj Babbar) and businessman (Gulshan Grover) and the Raja Rudra team unleash a kind of violence that gets on you and you suddenly realise you are in the midst of a place where guns and bullets are easier to get than onions and peace. The relationship between Raja and Rudra and the escapades are incident filled and surely cinematic and engaging but somewhere bereft of punch that goes with the kind of cinema. With Raja-Rudra going through the ‘yeh dosti hum nahin chodenge’ phase, a long drawn chronicle of violence leads to mindless destruction and demands of you to keep track as to who walked in, who left the script and what is the fatal total. Superimposed with half-hearted compromise with the box-office requirement is the romantic angle between Raja and Mitali (Sonakshi Sinha). Obviously as part of the scheme of the machinations of contemporary politics, you have the politician link with the police. So, we have Munna (Vidyut Jamwal) playing the archetype police officer efficient and trigger happy. Also in the scheme of things is the master planner in the jail (Vipin Sharma) and as the police officer Deepraj Rana.

Sonakshi has very little to do and is surprising that a star, who is choosy, takes a role of such poor demands. Perhaps from a career view point it is nice to have Tigmanshu in the CV. Jimmy Shergill is a case of talent abused in our cinema. Surely his talent calls for more attention in our cinema. Unfortunately, most filmmakers are governed only by the success at the box-office and unfortunately here he has not been very happening. Well, ‘Bullett Raja’ is surely all about Saif. The suave image of the star is so obviously so trenched that it is difficult to see him play the role. With a script that leaves more for the stunt man to deliver than the director, any actor has very little to do. He is bound to swim in his image and that is exactly what Saif does. It is here that Tigmanshu fails and where Vishal Bharadwaj succeeded.

For those who have a huge appetite for violence, this is good fare, but for those (including yours sincerely) who believe we have had an overkill of killings, this is yawn and tiring.