Sankat City - Movie Review

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Rimi Sen, Anupam Kher, Yashpal Sharma, Chunkey Panday, Virendra Saxena, Manoj Pahwa, Sanjay Mishra, Rahul Dev, Hemant Pandey

Director: Pankaj Advani

Rating: ***

What is delightful about ‘Sankat City’ is the cleverly written script, making the best use of every small incident that is brought into the script. Let me cite an example.

Scene one: Guru (Kay Kay Menon) is driving a car he just stole and the radio in the car predicts an earthquake in Mumbai as a meteor speeding its way towards the Arabian Sea would hit the earth surface. Without giving much of a thought, Guru switches to another station, also not giving the audience much to think about it then.

Scene two (towards the end): As the thrill reaches its height we see the earthquake happening and suddenly making things look different.

And this is not all. There are ample and more reasons which would support me on this claim. But like many well-sketched stories, ‘Sankat City’ too falls for inconsistency. The writer, who carries the film through the two hours of great fun, brings a rather tame end. The last few minutes suddenly neither bring the thrill at its best nor does it leave you wondering. But till those few minutes ‘Sankat City’ is one journey to enjoy, by everyone. This especially brings delight after last week’s tediously boring extravaganza called ‘Kambakkht Ishq’.

Set in a city where everyone is trying to survive in rat race, the film is about a few people who are trying to run away from danger and one person who is the reason of all danger. Fauzdar (Anupam Kher) is a shady don who threatens to kill when he does not get the money he owes. One of the defaulters named Pachisia (Yashpal Sharma) tries selling off his land to a flop director Gogi so that he can pay off Fauzdar. He is just about to get the money when the money gets stolen. More chaos is added to completely entangle every character with each other in some way or the other.

As mentioned earlier, the story is a winner. And the screenplay compliments it. The director even uses the poster and calendars in the frame to great effect. Dialogues definitely make this movie worth watching if nothing else. The film keeps going at a fast pace and never for once would you feel bored. Rather the thrill and suspense as to what would happen to all the money increase dramatically, engrossing you completely. And then you might even start empathizing for a couple of characters while laughing at their plight. The film has been edited and shot well to make an appealing package.

The characters are memorable. Despite a large number of characters in the fray, each one has his/her own scope of performance. Guru’s character is probably one of Kay Kay’s best. The actor who had earlier shown a comic streak in ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd’ is spontaneous as ever and does fabulously. Anupam Kher shows great restraint in an over-the-top character even as he belts out a Haryanvi accent. Rimi Sen too gets one of the best roles and she does justice with her attitude. Yashpal Sharma is brilliant in scenes when he is trying to romance Rimi, or trying to grab his ‘instant coffee’ with her.

But characters of Yashpal Sharma and Manoj Pahwa make a sudden exit. And the end is brought in quite abruptly which is something that is a bit difficult to digest after such a cool ride.

Though ‘Sankat City’ has a bag of money doing rounds, it is completely original and bears no resemblance to any other Bollywood films we have seen. However, the treatment does remind me of another cool piece of work ‘Ek Chalis Ki Last Local’, which released over two years back. Both films are incidentally set in Mumbai, are hilarious and show the plight of a few characters trying to outdo each other. ‘Sankat City’ however looks more intellectual while ‘Ek Chalis…’ had better mass appeal. Watch it for its intelligence.