Luck review

Don't push your 'Luck'

Starring: Imran Khan, Shruti Haasan, Sanjay Dutt, Mithun Chakraborty, Danny Denzongpa, Ravi Kissen, Chitrashi
Directed by: Soham Shah
Stars: 1 ½

Knowing that the director of Luck is the same guy who directed the god awful Kaal, one was always going to tread with some caution. And yet, this film from the Shree Ashtavinayak (the production house that gave another big dud in the form of Kidnap last year) stunningly manages to lower the bar further, coming up with a film that is both silly and revolting.

We know of films that progressively get bad but Luck wastes no time in this regard. So within less than a minute your heart sinks thinking of the torturous hours before you. The very first scene has Sanjay Dutt and a group of men hand-tied and blindfolded running through railway tracks even as a douzen trains go rushing by. Most of the men get killed and only Dutt survives. This is what Soham and Renzil D’Silva’s idea of luck in the film is!
Sample some more scenes meant to show you how Dutt is a lucky chap since childhood. He’s the only surviving kid in a riot or some such thing. In another scene as a child, he jumps from the fourth floor with his friends and ends up being the only one to live. This is the sort of crude definition Soham has for the word luck.

Moosa (Dutt) is into the business of bringing together ‘lucky’ guys (!) and pitting them against each other for a game show, where people can lay bets on them. It’s somewhat like a realty show on an island, except that here contestants even have to kill each other to survive.Now, who in their right minds would be part of something like this, even if they needed money badly? But there’s no use entertaining logical questions while watching this film, unless you want to frustrate yourself further.

Meanwhile, Ram (Imran Khan) is in urgent need of money after his father dies, leaving the family in severe debt. He has to arrange as much as 20 crores(!) or else his mom and him could be rendered homeless. So his ‘imaginative’ option is to go to the US and earn it quickly. But his Visa gets rejected and he comes up with more ‘creative’ ideas that we rather not go into.

Raghav (Ravi Kissen), a criminal, escapes his hanging due to a technical glitch. The writers of this film acquaint us that once a hanging goes wrong, the person cannot be hanged twice and has to be let off!! Nice!
Ram and Raghav are two among the others who finally come for the game show and therein begins one task after another – some scenes offer decent thrills but it’s mostly just a sickening experience.
The first half has to be the worst I have seen in a very long time. And you know the makers are really scraping the barrel when Mithun Chakraborty is made to spout his famous, ‘Koi shak’ again and again.

But Luck somewhat improves in the second half and that saves this from being an absolute disaster. Ravi Kissen is the sole entertaining character in the film and he does well. Sanjay Dutt plays these ‘dada -gunda’ type roles so often that there’s nothing left to be said anymore, except that he could desperately do with some change.
Shruti Haasan has clearly done this film for a lark. She’s not overly self-consciousness and comes with a certain casualness, which is welcome. But acting is not her forte.
Coming to Imran, it’s unfortunate that someone with such pleasant screen presence and decent acting talent is getting stuck in one bad film after another. He plays his part with restraint and does well in the action sequences.
The only other thing to recommend here is the music, which is good.Finally, what can one say? When films like these get made, you know that Bollywood is severely down on luck, as are audiences like us.
-Sandhya Iyer