‘Banjo’ movie review: It just doesn’t strike the right chord

Directed By: Ravi Jadhav
Produced By: Krishika Lulla
Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Nargis Fakhri
Duration: 2 hours 05 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 2/5

When a director of fabulous Marathi cinema like ‘Natrang’ and ‘Balak Palak’ decides to helm a project on the life of Banjo players, you would expect something unusual. But, alas! That’s just not the case with his Hindi directorial that stars Riteish Deshmukh and Nargis Fakhri in the lead roles.

The story kickstarts with the ‘Bappa’ song with a shaggy looking banjo player, Tarat (Riteish Deshmukh) who is the best banjo player in the entire city of Mumbai, or should we say slums of Mumbai? Tarat is not just a banjo player but also a part-time extortionist and a saviour with superb fighting skills, like a typical Hindi film hero. His song is heard by a huge crowd and amidst the crowd is Mikey, played by Luke Kenny, who records the song and sends it to his friend DJ Christina (Nargis Fakhri) residing overseas in New York. She is bowled over by the beats and song and decides to make a splash in Mumbai in a bid to search for those banjo players just so that she could collaborate with them and form a rock band. If that’s not convincing enough, then she is assigned the task of depicting the sad lives of slum dwellers by a research agency, so she could reach those banjo players pretty quickly. Here comes Tarat to her rescue as he becomes her tourist guide and takes her down the paths of the smallest of slums in Mumbai. But he doesn’t reveal his identity of being a banjo player simply because he is ashamed of it. He falls head over heels in love with the fair lady. Soon, she discovers the truth about his banjo playing skills and they form a rock band together playing around in various pubs and concerts. No it’s just not over as yet, because Tarat gets embroiled in a case that leads to his downfall. The script has already fallen by leaps till now and we are only left wondering as to where the story is headed.

This confusing plot will just make you want to look twice at your watch in a bid to rush back home for some sound sleep. The music by Vishal-Shekhar is upbeat and perfect for Ganpati Visarjan. Talking about performances, Riteish’s band members are funny in certain scenes that are a glowing relief from the headache. But, Riteish’s tapori style ghetto and his romantic angle with Nargis are just not enough to save the story, whereas Nargis is still trying hard to emote and fails miserably in every frame. Overall, the movie has nothing amazing to talk about except for Ganpati songs that may find their place in the Visarjan ceremony next year. We had expected something great from Ravi Jadhav, but a weak script and poor dialogues have not struck the right notes with us and leave us disappointed.

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