Movie Review: Rangrezz

Director: Priyadarshan

The Indian Express rating: *1/2

Priyadarshan has been growing so steadily unwatchable these days that you fear the worst when you step into Rangrezz, a remake of the Tamil hit Naadodigal. As the film unspools, each of those fears come true: this is rock-bottom.

The setting is meant to be Mumbai, but it is just another version of Priyadarshan's micro-village we see in all his films, with its mish-mash of accents and housing styles and locations. Rishi (Bhagnani) is a jobless fellow who hangs about with his best friends Pakkya (Verma) and Winu (Nagpal). A long-lost love-lorn pal shows up, and his sad story gives them a mission. Off they go, just like that, to unite the lovers in the face of all odds.

I've been at a loss to figure out exactly why parental figures in Priyan's movies are so uniformly draconian. They all seem to live in a time warp, and start frothing at the mere thought of romance amongst consenting adults. In this fictional Lalitpur, the residents speak in an exaggerated Bihari-Purabiya lingo. So Pankaj Tripathi, who plays the girl's father is still comes off all right, but Lushin Dubey who is the lover boy's politician mother is laugh-out-loud ludicrous. Car chases with sword-and –gun-wielding goons in hot pursuit ensue; so does grievous harm to body parts. The proceedings get steadily gag-worthy, till you come to the inevitable question: can

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