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'Mumbai Xpress' Crime Meets Confusion

By Nitika Desai
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Three small-time crooks plan to kidnap the son of a corrupt builder. And in this (misad)venture they seek the help of a man nicknamed Mumbai Xpress, a multi-talented speedster who is hard of hearing but soft at conscience.

Kamal Haasan’s Mumbai Xpress is a comedy of errors, revolving around a kidnapping. The film, based on story and screenplay by Haasan himself, has been directed by Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao, who made laugh riots like Pushpak and Appu Raja with Kamal in the past.

Story: Digambar (Vijay Raaj) and his two cronies have an ingenious plan to make big money – kidnap the son of a rich, corrupt and obese builder named Mehta (Saurabh Shukla). But before the plan could be brought into action, one of the cronies takes to the hospital bed. That is when the idea to rope in Mumbai Xpress (Kamal Haasan) comes up.

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Xpress (real name Avinash) is a deft biker, who makes his living from small shows and has no ambitions to play with crime. However, the gang eventually kidnaps a boy, although the wrong one. As it turns out to their misfortune, the kidnapped boy is not the builder’s son, but the illegitimate child of the area’s DCP (Om Puri).

The crooks find themselves on tenterhooks after they discover the true identity of the boy. They plan to kill the child. But Mumbai Xpress has different plans. He will do everything to reunite the kidnapped boy with his mother Ahilya (Manisha Koirala), the mistress of DCP.

There can be no denying that Mumbai Xpress has hilarious moments aplenty, but the movie, or rather its narrative, drags at many places. Also, the humor at times becomes over-ludicrous and fails to come through.

Besides this, the movie has a bland visual quality as it was shot on Digital format.

But the film has a very MTV 'grunge' look which youngsters would find fashionable. Doing away with unnecessary trappings, director Sreenivasa Rao keeps the technique as an icing on the cake. But some special effect scenes are poorly done and can be spotted easily.

Mumbai Xpress rests solely on the shoulders of its performers. Kamal Haasan excels in his portrayal and delights you with his comic sense, though at times only. The real scene-stealers are Vijay Raaj (who makes you laugh even with his serious look), Saurabh Shukla (who plays the loose-tongue builder) and the inimitable Om Puri (without whom the second half would have fallen flat). Manisha Koirala doesn’t get much footage to show her comic timing, which we doubt she even has.

All in all, Mumbai Xpress is a fine entertainer, but it is no match to the previous comedies by Rao and Haasan. The movie tests your patience in the second half. Had it not been for the talented actors in the movie, Mumbai Xpress would have gone off the rails.

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