00:00Saif Ali Khan's Laal Kaptaan was meant to be a swashbuckling adventure that we know from Hollywood.
00:06But I think it was lost in translation.
00:13Laal Kaptaan, directed by Navdeep Singh, keeps on harping about death and how it's the biggest leveler.
00:19But the real death knell came when we, as an audience, had to sit through 160 minutes of the torture.
00:27Now don't get me wrong here, it's not a bad movie.
00:29I think it's one of those few films which looks great on paper.
00:33Think about it, a sage gone rogue and a sage on a revenge killing spree.
00:38There's Saif Ali Khan in the centre, who's one of the most talented actors in Bollywood.
00:43He takes risks and you have to give him marks for taking risks.
00:47He experiments with his roles.
00:48But somehow this is a misfire because it's supposed to be a swashbuckling Hollywood adventure
00:56something on the lines of, let's say, Indiana Jones.
00:58But somehow it misfires because Saif Ali Khan is not able to be fully convincing
01:03as this sage who has gone rogue.
01:05The story goes thus.
01:07He plays Laal Kaptaan, a man who's a sage but he wants to take exact revenge
01:13on this Indian royal called Rehmat Khan.
01:16It's set in 18th century India and it's a period epic
01:20about how there's an advent of English East India Company
01:24and how there are so many Indian kings who are fighting for their kingdom.
01:28So there's lawlessness and anarchy.
01:30The best part about this movie is how beautifully it has been shot.
01:34If you look at the cinematography, it's a beautiful landscape, the dusty landscape.
01:39It kind of communicates the angst and the anarchy that's there everywhere.
01:44But somehow beautiful landscapes don't always translate into riveting cinema
01:49and that's what happened with Laal Kaptaan.
01:51And another downfall of this movie is Saif Ali Khan looking a lot like Jack Sparrow.
01:56I mean the red jacket, the cold rimmed eyes, the dreadlocks, all of it look
02:02and the unwashed look, all of it reminds you of Jack Sparrow
02:05and an Indianized version perhaps of Jack Sparrow.
02:09So you've already seen that in Pirates of the Caribbean.
02:12So why should you give this movie a chance?
02:15It's Saif Ali Khan who does the heavy lifting
02:17but he's ably supported by Deepak Dobriyal who plays a man with heightened sense of smell.
02:23So he's almost like a tracker and he helps these rogues.
02:27He does anything for money.
02:29He's up for sale according to him.
02:31He's a slave for money so his masters change
02:34but he is ready to deceive anybody for a good buck.
02:38So Dobriyal is the only comic relief in the movie
02:41and he does inject some charisma into his role as well.
02:44And there's Manav Vich who plays the lethal Indian king.
02:47Again he's morally bankrupt and Saif Ali Khan's character Ghusain is after his blood.
02:53You don't know why he wants to exact revenge until the very end of the movie
02:57and by then it's too late.
02:59I've gone with two out of five.
03:01For my full review go to gulfnews.com tabloid.
03:04The reason why I'm being so generous with the movie is because I'm his fangirl
03:08and therefore I could sit through it
03:10but if you're not a fan of Saif Ali Khan then perhaps you should give this a miss.
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