One upon a time in Mumbai- Dobara (OUATIMD).

Ekta Kapoor and Milan Luthria had made a fine film called 'Once upon a time in Mumbai' in 2010 based on the Life of Haji Mastan and his rivalry with his protege Dawood Ibrahim. That was a fine film which was well acted by Ajay Devgan, Kangna Ranaut, Prachi Desai and Emraan Haashmi. The music of the film was also very well composed with some fine songs. It had the look and feel of a gangster film.
Ekta Kapoor and Milan Luthria then made a sequel to this film which was released last week. It was called  'Once upon a time in Mumbai- Dobara (OUATIMD)'. I don’t know on whose life this movie is based. Even after watching the movie in a theater I still don’t know whether the movie is a gangster film, or is a love story, or is it a comedy ? It neither has gangs nor does it have love, and efforts to make us laugh fall flat. Has it even been directed by the same guy who made the first film ? 

In the beginning I thought that this was some satire. The Don (a tall man who dresses like Dawood Ibrahim and wears goggles like him), talks in a funny manner. He is a Don as he smokes like all Don's do. Actually he is our sweet looking Akshay Kumar who is supposed to be a tough Don in the movie. He likes talking and each dialogue is supposed to be meaningful and funny. So he talks all nonsense throughout the film waiting for people to clap at each dialogue he mouths. He talks with a drawl and tries walking with a swagger. In the prologue he adopts two street boys seeing their potential . These boys were into betting fixing and spend a lot of time in an alcove under the tracks of railways. Luckily no one shits on them from the open toilets our trains have. Don had a long term vision so he adopts them and takes them under his wing.

Then a few years later while in Oman and soon after making out with a sexy married woman in red bra, he tells all the gangs of Mumbai that he has taken over the entire Mumbai and they can buzz off.  He has 5 to 6 henchmen so everyone including his opponents are shocked that he has taken over the entire Mumbai’s operations with the help of these few guys. Shockingly, all gangs actually buzz off leaving him to be the undisputed king of Mumbai. There is one fellow Sawant (Mahesh Manjrekar) who keeps trying funny stunts to kill the new Don. He also talks and behaves funny. He has no team, no henchmen and no support but he wants to destroy our Don.As if by killing Don he would have become the new Don. Mahesh Manjrekar was a fine director- look what the poor guy has to do to earn livelihood now. 

Our Don is the restless types. He even lands up in dangerous spots to do petty things as he doesn't trust his henchmen to do the work. Now, he has 5 henchmen  and he takes over entire Mumbai with their help but he doesn't even trust them !  Out of the 5, he kills one because police detains him only for a short while. I told you it was a satire!

Then  enters our  plump and 'slow in head' heroine.  Our very desi Sonakshi Sinha in her glorious suits and saris tries to dazzle us. The comedy scenes follow where she talks about her ‘intercourse’ . This wins the heart of our tough  Don. She has come to Mumbai to become a heroine and without a release to her  credit our Don  gets her a film award being held at some sidey hotel.  Now our villain Sawant realizes that only Don could have got this feat done so he puts two and two together and decides to make her a bait but then goes and shoots the heroine. Why he shoots the heroine when he wanted her as a bait is a mystery I have not been able to solve.

Here I expected our Don to be angry. I thought he would be so angry that he would burn down Mumbai. Each person in Mumbai would have to face the wrath of a wounded Don. In the past the Don had been shown having vicious and unforgiving temper. With great difficulty and persuasion the heroine had agreed to be his. His handsome henchman had gone to pick up the heroine when this dumb fellow Sawant had shot her. But strangely our Don is cool. He walks in coolly to hospital and without bothering too much about heroine he devices a plan with his handsome henchman to  get Sawant out of his hole where he is hiiding. He is intelligent enough to know that only Sawant was dumb enough to shoot her. The plan involves publicizing that handsome henchman and heroine are lovers and Don was against this henchman now. This would attract Sawant to henchman. (oh God- who wrote this bloody script !).

Now this handsome henchman is our hero Imran Khan. This hero is actually in love with our dumb heroine. They fell in love as each day they would accompany another of Don’s henchman and his girlfriend to a quiet place. Each day as the hero and the heroine watched this sidey henchman thump his girlfriend in a car, they fell in love with each other.

So the equation became as follows :

   a)  Don loves the heroine but she thinks he is just a friend. As she is dumb, she could not figure out his love for her even though he talked about stars and moon and all mushy things. When she says ‘no’ to him he breaks the entire film set and movie cameras and then sends gifts to her house. This way he manages to get the girl. Simple.

  b) Our hero loves the heroine and wants to tell her about this love but doesn’t. At each thumping session he looks at her strangely but she does not respond. He takes her to all sort of places and makes her lie down on dirty ground under railway tracks as well but doesn’t do anything ‘naughty’ with her. She must have thought that this is one dumb guy . Whether she loves him or not is another mystery. In the end she tells him that she did love him. Whew.

 c)  Don doesn’t know his henchman and his love were each day at a site where thumping took place. As he was a Don, had he known this, he would have killed them all.

One day Don finds out that there is some love story happening in which his ‘girl’ was involved with  our hero. Now this hero and the thumping henchman were the same 2 kids he had adopted and trained for so many years. The thumping henchman tries to signal the danger to the hero by honking. For this honking he gets killed.

I think somewhere along the way Sawant also got killed as he fell for the rubbish scheme the Don had made with our hero.

Don  gets very angry that hero and heroine had eloped and run away from hospital and reaches Dongri. Even in all these troubled times he does not give up his funny dialogues. Our hero had gone to Dongri with the heroine even though he knew that Dongri was the ‘adda’ of the Don. Dongri gives us an idea that it must be Dawood on whose life our Don was modeled.  People of Dongri liked the Don and they put up barricades made of fire to stop the Police.  Now the hero, heroine and Don were all in Dongri and Dongri had been barricaded.

The Don bashes up our hero with his own hands. He keeps hitting and challenging the hero but the hero was a  Namak Halal and did not want to raise hand on someone who had raised him up. But he raises hand at a crucial time to save the Don from Police firing and gets shot himself. Debt is paid back.

While all the drama is going on, Don also gets shot. God knows what happens next but somehow Don lands up in a cargo ship going off somewhere and our  hero must have got the girl for good if he survived.

If indeed this film is based on the life of Dawood Ibrahim, how would he have felt being portrayed like this in a movie ?  Must be rather insulting for him. Ekta Kapoor should be on her guard now for insulting the real Don. If I were Akshay, I would be even more careful. 

The ending was juicy. Hero has the heroine and he knows the tricks of trade. Will he be new Don ? Don is injured but on a ship. Will he be back ? So many gangs whom the Don had controlled with his 5 henchmen would have felt liberated after Don went away and 4 henchmen got killed.Would they now cause mayhem in Mumbai ?

Now anxiously waiting  for the making and release of 'Once upon a time in Mumbai-Tibaara.'