Movie Review: Blackmail

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Priyanka Chopra, Suniel Shetty, Dia Mirza, Suniel Shetty
Director: Anil Devgan
Producer: Shyam Bajaj

Rating: 2/5

Anil Devgan visiting card has one high point. He is Ajay Devgan’s cousin. His first film Raju Chach starring Ajay and Kajol sank without trace. Four year down the drain he re-surfaces with a re-hash of Mel Gibson and
Rene Russo starrer Ransom.

This Tom-n-Jerry gymnastics instead concerns a top cop (Shetty) whose son is kidnapped by a top outlaw (Devgan). The reason the toddler is the tool for revenge is that Devgan’s criminal, out from jail, is on the lookout for his lost kid.

Shetty’s ACP knows where the baby, eight years hence, could be. And no free tickets for guessing that the cop’s kidnapped son is actually the criminal’s (this is revealed much before the finale, so I haven’t killed any mystery for anyone).

What’s a mystery actually is the movie’s motive. At one level, maybe this was meant to be a fast-car version of the mobike mayhem Dhoom. Oh, what wishful thinking - unless of course Maruti Esteems racing on a mud-track the size of a soccer field, is anyone’s idea of an adrenaline-pump.

The second failed motive could be a straight and simple chor-sipahi chase. On that front, since Bollywood has bombarded us with Bombay police stories, minimum research by now is needed, please.

An Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, almost a decade in service, no matter how much of a nincompoop, cannot be an Assistant Commissioner of Police. Well, in fact there are no IPS ACP’s anywhere in Mumbai. Wish Shetty’s ACP Rathore hadn’t conferred with Aamir Khan’s ACP Rathore in Sarfarosh to ascertain his basic designation.

But that’s a larger point and this misstep isn’t novel. The only novel aspect that I encountered through this never-ending yawner was perhaps the bullet repeatedly tearing through the air in a snake-like zoom.

So, you know what I mean. To put things in black and white, you could give this brainlessly botched-up black-buster a sure-fire miss.