Lucknow Central movie review: Has its intention on point

Directed By: Ranjit Tiwari
Produced By: Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, Nikhil Advani, Monisha Advani, Madhu G Bhojwani
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Diana Penty, Deepak Dobriyal, Rajesh Sharma, Ronit Roy, Inaamulhaq, Gippy Grewal
Duration: 2 hours 27 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 3/5

Whisking vivid feelings led by triumph, disaster and tragedies was what debutant director Ranjit Tiwari aimed to do. With its share of mild flaws, ‘Lucknow Central’ pulls off its intentions pretty well.

Farhan Akhtar plays one Kishen Mohan Girhotra, a UP man who falls victim to false accusations of committing a murder, and lands up behind the bars. Now, this portion looked not only fairly unconvincing, but also enjoyed unlikely convenience as events occured.

Kishen is just one among many under unfavourable circumstances, may be? He is a passionate singer who imagines himself to make it big some day. But a jail isn’t where you do that, right? For Kishen, however, the tale twists.

After some intemperate conflicts with fellow inmates that look like the director’s efforts to introduce us to other key characters and also set a backdrop of imminent days, he comes across Parminder (Gippy Grewal), Victor (Deepak Dobriyal), Pandit Ji (Rajesh Sharma) and Dikkat Ansari (Inaamulhaq). Gayatri Kashyap aka Diana Penty is a social activist who crucially functions behind forming  a musical band at the Lucknow Central Jail, uniting the five friends with a mutual motive of breaking free.  Though, the hidden agenda is smelt by the badass jailer (Ronit Roy). At the end, however, the film is not about finding freedom through short cuts. It is about dumbing down the catastrophes.

Farhan Akhtar seems to have developed a serious fetish for films with music as their key influential factor. Though, drawing a comparison with ‘Rock On!!’ and ‘Rock On 2’ wouldn’t be fair, since ‘Lucknow Central’, in its ambitions and intentions, is more than a group of people celebrating music as their passion. And since the film was almost banking on the spirit of melody, we expected so much more from the film’s music. It however remained only situational.

The first half flows slowly and comfortably, allowing you to sync in to the moving course of events. The second half is eventful, quicker, resulting in quite an adrenaline rush.  It is also the period of changing emotions. Barring places wherein the pace slows down, Tiwari’s direction is crisp and has its message on point.

A strong Rajesh Sharma and an aptly obnoxious Ronit Roy take away the cake from a decent Farhan Akhtar here. Diana Penty, in her third Bollywood outing, has a surprisingly small screen-time. She manages fairly well, but leaves no mark. Another person, to have done a commendable job within limited time, is Manav Vij.

Production wise, the film is a delight. From the massive jail, perfectly imitated and made to feel like a narrow, little known world of its own, to those dimmed lights giving away hints of many scary nights, ‘Lucknow Central’ just looks and feels real. So is the cinematography, demonstratively done by Tushar Kanti Ray.

Where the film arguably lacks is, the sufferings don’t stay with you for long. However, the film definitely deserves one watch.

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