A cooLLY crAfteD cAt-ANDmoUse gAme

Shor TC u T ro M eo

STARRING: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Ameesha

Patel and Puja Gupta

DIRECTOR: Susi Ganesh

There are two ways of doing a fullon masala film.

You either turn it on its head and poke fun at ridiculous cinematic conventions. Or you treat the stereotypical characters and sacred cows of our cinema with full seriousness.

Shortcut Romeo takes the midway route. It seems so full of the old-world formulistic flavour and the stench of the familiar that parts of the pulsating aggressive storytelling actually feel like a spoof.

So, we have the film’s unfaithful wife Monica (Ameesha Patel) and her slimy lover (Jatin Garewal) making out on a golf turf: it is beyond logic why an affluent couple, who could afford the poshest of duplex to meet, would choose such a spot.

And then the lover tells the unfaithful wife, “First time you do it, you feel bad. Then it becomes your style”. Er, how stylish!

But please don’t laugh. First-time

Hindi director Susi Ganesan is dead serious. The film shot at the speed of sound is filled with bizarre twists and turns. It’s basically the story of a woman who cheats on a saintly tycoon of a husband (effectively played by Rajesh Shringapure) who has a massive portrait of Rabindranath Tagore in his bedroom, and a cheesy blackmailer named Suraj (Neil Nitin Mukesh), who believes in taking risky short-cuts to get rich.

This is not the first film about a cheating wife and a blackmailer. Reena Roy and Naseeruddin Shah had done the roles with heart-stopping tension in Bezubaan. Shortcut Romeo scores in the way the plot paces out its drama in the ongoing friction between the cheating wife and the blackmailer.

Neil plays the cheesy go-getter with a schemer’s delight. His eyes glint when he talks of teasing more money out of Monica. He drools when she transfers cash into his trashy life. Alas, excessive hedonism is just an excuse for African tourism.

The Kenyan expedition reads like a botched-up touristic brochure.

Bad idea, Ganesan. Even worse is the director himself showing up in the second-half as the cheated husband’s detective-friend. performance would go down in cinematic history as one of the most consistent and compelling portrayals of single-minded ardour.

Ganesan’s accent is so thick, it slices the gamboling narration into smithereens. At least for a while. But then again the film gathers momentum towards the end-game. The finale is a breathless whammy with Neil making a run for his freedom, quite literally, with the narrative panting behind him.

Shortcut Romeo is redeemed by a strong message on today’s 20-somethings yearning for materialism. And when our Shortcut Romeo finds his shortskirt Juliet (Puja Gupta) there is a delicious irony attached to the association. The film’s most vivid interludes go back to Neil’s childhood to show how he learned to be corrupt, acquisitive, and inquisitive, at a tender age.

Some of the action sequences with Neil, specially one key fight with African tribals, are first-rate. But then the songs - oh my god! - they pop up at the most inopportune moments.

As for Sonam Kapoor, she is a complete revelation! In a born-again performance she sparkles, creating a kind of sunshine-girl who is so taken up with herself that she doesn’t get the chance to see what effect she has on the other until it’s too late.

Swara Bhaskar as Dhanush’s devoted ill-treated girl-pal and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub as his loyal friend, once again prove themselves natural-born scene stealers.

Raanjhanaa is a very simply-told story of a love so intense, durable and destructive, that it hurts.

Su B ha S h k . j ha manages to stay constantly one step ahead of the audience. A coolly crafted cat-and-mouse game Shortcut Romeo finds Neil giving grit to the gripping goings-on. The last half-hour is a knock-out.

Su B ha S h k j ha