Director: Vardhan Ketkar
Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, Mrunal Thakur, Vedika Pinto, Ronit Bose Roy and others
Where: In theatres near you
Rating: 2 stars
A pre-Covid announced project, Gumraah seems to be an old-fashioned thriller that happily caters to a mass audience. Debutant filmmaker Vardhan Ketkar’s film is a remake of the 2019 Telugu film Thadam that has an unbearable first half and despite its second half picking up, it’s too late.
Lookalikes Arjun and Sooraj (both played by Aditya Roy Kapur) are suspects in one brutal but planned murder. Top cop Yadav (Ronit Bose Roy) appoints SI Shivani Mathur (Mrunal Thakur) to investigate the case, but who is the killer?
Vardhan tries too hard to keep his audience ‘gumraah’ but his screenplay rather leads to boredom. Several South Indian films are being remade in Hindi lately and they at least manage to entertain, but Gumraah goes nowhere. Overdramatic characters and cheap action sequences do a lot of damage to the aim of the movie.
Being from the most over-consumed genre — thriller, Gumraah stands out from the rest simply because of its unusual plot but the whole execution bit is bizarre. Primarily, the core of Gumraah is the love story of Arjun and Jahnvi (Vedika Pinto) but also has cop drama and dysfunctional family dynamics as its underlying themes.
Vardhan’s adaptation is highly dull as compared to the original. The unavoidable tendency of keeping stale humour is the biggest loophole. Gumraah is definitely a tiresome watch.
Aditya, who has just good looks, excels in that department only. In fact, his one character Arjun looks like an extension of a suave Army officer from his last not-so-appealing Rashtra Kavach Om (2022). His other character Sooraj is a bit interesting since he has his own local flamboyance. Mrunal, who plays the cop for the first time ever, is earnest. She is a director’s actor and hence her one tone throughout comes with pros and cons.
Ronit Bose Roy is usual — a handsome-looking cop who is ageing backwards. Operation Romeo (2022) fame Vedika Pinto is impressive in her short yet important role. A new talent definitely to watch out for.
Gumraah could have been a much better film or at par with the original. Holding a standalone identity becomes so essential for the remakes these days but sadly, Gumraah truly resonates with its title and doesn’t have any such power.
Aditya’s unfortunate timing continues with Gumraah. The fact check is that he is a good-looking man but the reality check is that his looks don’t compensate for a badly executed film.
