Gauravv K Chawla's direction is perfection for a movie like this.
Baazaar Movie Review Rating: 3.5/5 Stars (Three and a half stars)
Star Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Radhika Apte, Chitrangda Singh, Manish Chaudhari.
Director: Gauravv K Chawla
What’s Good: Saif Ali Khan’s salty aura coupled with a sharp performance, Aseem Arora’s seeti-maar dialogues, two impressing debuts by Gauravv K Chawla (Director) and Rohan Mehra (Actor)!
What’s Bad: Second half dips somewhere because of the overdose of technical terms, how I wish the makers shouldn’t have used a similar sketch as Oliver Stone’s Wall Street.
Loo Break: Not a single! Even if the ‘Dandha’ is too much for you in the second half, I’ll suggest be seated because you’ll need every dot to join in the end!
Watch or Not?: This is from those good movies which are not meant for everyone, it has its target audience among which it’ll get appraised but few people will just not enjoy as much as those people will. But one thing is for sure, you’ll enjoy it!
Shakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan) is ‘the’ business tycoon and every stock trader’s wet dream. Rizwan Ahmed (Rohan Mehra), an aspiring moneymaker but lives with a conservative Farhan Qureshi’s kinda dad in Allahabad – sorry Mr. Adityanath, Prayagraj. Rizwan, along with his street-smart attitude & sky-high dreams reach Mumbai in order to make a name for himself.
Idolizing Shakun as god he meets Priya (Radhika Apte) who helps her in finding a job as a trader in a top firm. Relying heavy on emotions, he uses his brain to reach Shakun. Once their path intersects, the game of Brain vs Heart starts and how they make & break things is what the rest of the story revolves around.
Baazaar Movie Review: Script Analysis
I’m not at all saying Parveez Shaikh has penned this story after watching Wall Street (1978), I’m just saying how the basic premise of the whole master-disciple angle and how they stand against each other is already done. However, this is beautifully Indianised and every ‘desi’ ingredient works in the favour of the film. The spiritual angle kind of feels forced and adds nothing of substance to the feel.
Parveez Shaikh and Aseem Arora’s screenplay is tightly drawn during the major chunk of the film, yes it dips at certain places and that’s where things go out of hand. Swapnil Sonawane’s camera captures the essence of stock market in a pretty satisfactory way. There are scenes where the entire set-up looks inauthentic but it’s cleverly covered by solid performances. The idea of building up a relationship between Saif & Rohan’s character and then bringing them face to face lacks depth.
Baazaar Movie Review: Star Performance
Saif Ali Khan isn’t Indian Gordan Gekko, he’s the Shakun Kothari! Brilliantly portraying the role of this blunt businessman, he retains a kind of likability for his character. Mouthing some laudable dialogues, Saif delivers one of his best. Rohan Mehra hits the ball out of the park in his maiden attempt at movies. He’s balanced and handles the every emotion very naturally.
Radhika Apte is ‘aadat se majboor’ of giving notable performances back to back. She’s smartly picking up roles for herself which are right up to her alley.
Chitrangda Singh is pretty ordinary, she doesn’t has much contribution to the story. Manish Chaudhari as Rana Dasgupta is strictly fine but his character had the maximum scope to shine.
Baazaar Movie Review: Direction, Music
Gauravv K Chawla’s direction is perfection for a movie like this. The idea of fourth wall break is less affective because of the writing in it. Gauravv smoothly carry out the proceedings, also thanks to Maahir Zaveri and Arjun Srivastava’s editing. There are a lot of nominations coming for this debut director.
There are not much songs that obstruct your watching experience. Tanishk Bagchi’s Kem Cho is played in the background and goes very well with the scenes, best song of the album. Yo Yo Honey Singh’s Billionaire is quirky as most of his songs and comes at a juncture where it was required. Adhoora Lafz, La La La and Chhod Diya doesn’t work for me.
Baazaar Movie Review: The Last Word
All said and done, Baazaar is one entertaining film laced with some superlative performances & refined direction. The concept of ‘make money’ will fantasize many but the movie has its own charm and style majorly because of ever-so-dashing Saif Ali Khan.
Three and a half stars!
Baazaar Trailer
Baazaar releases on 26th October, 2018.