Cast: Sohum Shah, Sushant Singh, Om Puri, Mithun Chakraborty, Mukesh Tiwari, Tinnu Anand

Director: Ashu Trikha

Rating: **

Twelve year old Baabarr picks up a gun and takes a life. He does that because that’s what his young life has propelled him towards—bloodshed and killing.

That little fellow with burning eyes grows up into a fearless contract killer. Baabarr (Sohum) and his fellow travelers live in Lucknow, not Mumbai. So the argot is Awadhi-mixed-with-Urdu, not `tapori’, and the setting is the `gallis’ of Amanganj, not Dharavi. But it’s basically your standard gangsta flick, pitting one home-made `katta’ against another, leaving the worst man standing.

Ashu Trikha, who’s done ‘Deewanapan’ and a couple of others before this, has a thing for blood. He lets it flow freely. Animal carcasses and mangled bodies and splashes of scarlet serve only to overwhelm the collection of patriarchal mob bosses, gun-toting underlings, crooked cops and honest officers. And everything gets drowned in the gratuitous violence.

A couple of acts are stand-outs. Om Puri comes up with a crackerjack performance of a policeman with highly developed survival instincts. He tells his superior, who comes galloping into town to ‘finish’ Baabarr: “sir, promotion nahin hua, par transfer bhi nahin hua” . And you send up a little cheer for one of our best actors. Tinnu Anand, as the goon who can be good, is excellent as always.

So is Govind Namdeo, playing a powerful fixer who picks up a phone and tells his son’s soon-to-be father-in-law: “daamaad ji zara MLA ki kursi chaah rahey thhey”. The demand, needless to say, is complied with, by his politically heavy-weight `samdhi’.

... contd.