If it was made in the 90s, this movie would likely have been a staple in the televisions of Bollywood-loving homes now. It’s known that the idea of this film originated in the 90’s between super producer Karan Johar and his super producer father. The rich visual opulence afforded in stunning Indian locations is something more filmmakers could take advantage of, so it’s nice to have Kalank. Kalank is the sort of Bollywood movie that only Sanjay Leela Bhansali seems to make these days, that filmmaker behind epic romances including Bajirao Mastani and Romeo & Juliet adaptation Ram-Leela. Maybe the filmmakers thought it would sound cool to be received with a general headline reading “John Abraham helps create Bangladesh” but didn’t expect the rest of it to say, “in a ‘thriller’ that wraps us up in boredom.” Kalank (Stigma) You could say it’s a vehicle for the badass star persona of John Abraham, but it’s more like a walking stick, helping him limp along with whatever’s left in this old hat shtick. There are good movies that could be made about the Indo-Pak war (like the Alia Bhatt-starring award winner Raazi ) but Romeo Akbar Walter isn’t one of them. It’s safe to say producers know who to call if they need to add an overt patriotic touch to their movies.
Romeo Akbar Walter (2019) – source: Viacom18 Motion PicturesĮdward Sonnenblick, who I described last month as the resident colonial Brit in Bollywood following his roles in Kesari and Manikarnika, finds a kindred spirit in Anil George who has two credits this year as a dodgy Pakistani government official, playing one here and one in January’s hit Uri: the Surgical Strike. Romeo/Akbar/Walter’s mother Waheeda ( Alka Amin) is established as our anchor to the personal, emotional stakes of the journey at heart but she’s ultimately truncated to being the subject of a cheesy line of dialogue in the finale. There’s little to say about the other characters except a few negative things: Parul ( Mouni Roy) is the secretary of the economic wing who’s promised to be far more important at the intermission than she actually ends up being by the end of the movie. There was more effort put in the title – a nice multi-entendre of the protagonist name(s), military speak and the acronym of India’s actual foreign intelligence agency – than the script. Further disappointingly, there’s hardly any action for him to engage in, with the laboured screenplay spending more time on all the boring parts of being a spy. In fact, this is established before we’ve even seen the movie, thanks to his wasteful casting, for everyone familiar with the action star knows exactly what the outcome will be when bad guys square up to him.
Mr Abraham outmanoeuvres everyone, every time, reducing any sense of danger or tension to zero. But here, there’s none of the same surprise or finesse. It’s a cat-and-mouse thriller that plays out like the Tom and Jerry scene in which Tom sends a couple of big cats to take out Jerry, who wipes them out singlehandedly. Romeo Akbar Walter (2019) – source: Viacom18 Motion Pictures Abraham plays a modest fellow who assumes all the titular names at various points after he’s hired by the Research and Analysis Wing agent Shrikant Rai (Shroff) to spy on Pakistan and help liberate the part of the country that would subsequently form as Bangladesh. In the Indo-Pak war of 1971, East Pakistan is dominated by terrors in power and it’s up to former model John Abraham and seasoned performer Jackie Shroff to embark on a private undercover in mission to infiltrate Pakistan. To speak plainly, this espionage thriller is a slog to get through. It employs the Futura font for the English subtitles as opposed to the usual Arial and, as the name suggests, it looks fresh, contemporary and cool, unlike what the film tries to achieve for its lead actor. Romeo Akbar Walter may be the first movie in history wherein the font of the subtitles is the best part of the viewing experience. Nevertheless, cinemagoers were served with two major releases which I’ve reviewed below. Outside of the cinemas, the Indian general election went underway which resulted in the delay of the divisive Narendra Modi biopic after it was ruled by the Election Commission to have “the potential to disturb the level playing field”. It was a quiet month for releases, with distributors likely knowing their films would barely have a life in theaters during April due to Avengers: Endgame occupying virtually every time-slot and every screen in every cinema, everywhere. Disclaimer: I may not have seen all of the past month’s globally released features. Bollywood Inquiry is a monthly column on the biggest new Bollywood movies.
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