Blast from the past: Musafir

It's the genre of leather jackets, gold bracelets, chains, rings, black shades, cigars, streaked hair, guns and goons.
A gunshot reverberates, shattering all silence. A madman with gold capped teeth holds his catch at point blank, while the catch recollects why a pistol barrel is staring right at him.

 

The Musafir in question is Lucky (Anil Kapoor), a gentleman with ruffled hair and a thick stubble, who makes big time money hatching deals in pitch dark alleys.
His aim: probably to buy out all the boutiques in the world for this lass (Koena Mitra) who yankee doodles around him with only a two bit clothing clinging to her person.

 

Lucky's luck runs out when the lass absconds with his money leaving only her two bit bikini behind. He also gets into the bad books of an eccentric mafia superlord, Billa (Dutt), who makes him cross a highway swarmed by fleeting traffic, blindfolded.

Billa would excuse Lucky's peccadilos if he executes an unfinished business in Goa.
Lucky sets off to accomplish the task. He is constantly stalked by a corny cop, Tiger (Aditya Panscholi), who would also tell you a thing or two about sex and chocolates!

 

Lucky gets lucky again when he is seduced by sultry Sam (Sameera Reddy), who slips him many a cryptic and easy clue, before they lock lips in a moment of passion. Presently there's a knock on the door. Lucky may think it's opportunity, but Sam knows it's her husband Luka (Mahesh Manjrekar).
Thus what began as a gun point extends into a segment, an angle, a triangle and a tangle through which Lucky tries to find a way to finish his task.

 

Plenty of style, attitude, bare and dare chauffer Musafir to Destination interval.

 

While Lucky juggles his own problems, both Luka and Sam unwind their respective versions of the past (cleverly shot in blue and ochre lenses), each asking Lucky to help bump the other off. Confusion unleashed, the plot bathes in a pool of tomato ketchup and Lucky flees to a holiday village with Sam in tow.

 

Meanwhile, Billa cannot comprehend the delay in the mission and decides to check things out himself.

 

Unable to make up his mind on whether the blue lens or the ochre told the true story, Lucky asks Sam to be kissed again. The kiss is again aborted in its infancy when corny cop and his men swoop down on the place. Billa also announces himself into the climax on a Harley, and the bird brained story runs with all its might, stumbles on its toes and falls with a thud at the finishing line.

 

The best thing about Musafir is its attitude. Musafir is not Bollywood's adolescence, trying to tiptoe past the censor board. Musafir declares all its bad habits on the table and demands to be treated like an adult.

 

Sanjay Gupta decks up Musafir with load and loads of style and oomph leaving no place for a story. He creates a rich, stylish ambience into which all the elements of his movie blend homogenously. The entire movie is shot in blue, ochre and maroon lens.

 

The songs are set at a high energy level with Sunjay Dutt crooning his own tracks. All characters have their bagfuls of cracking dialogues, ranging from brilliant to the bizzare.

 

Koena Mitra meets her objective with two high adrenaline numbers.

Sameera reddy's body language makes no grammatical errors. She exudes a rare Salma Hayekish sensuality in some scenes.

Aditya Panscholi lends sufficient idiosyncracy into his character. Shakti Kapoor flickers in a three bit role.
Mahesh Manjrekar snuggles into his role with utmost comfort. As the razor tongued Luka, he displays incredible naturality.

Anil Kapoor walks the walk with utmost sincerity. He has proven himself time and again, and does so, one more time in Musafir.

And Sunjay Dutt magnanimously graces the occasion lending his Midas touch to the movie.

 

Musafir is a very in your face movie. It has no hassles calling a spade, a spade and other things which the dictionary might be embarrased to tell you. But what is missing is the spade itself.