Director Ranjit Tiwari‘s most-awaited comedy film “Lucknow Central” has finally released today. The movie which is produced by Nikkhil Advani, under the banner of Emmay Entertainment. The film will star Farhan Akhtar, Diana Penty, Ronit Roy and Uday Tikekar. The movie also features Punjabi singer Gippy Grewal.
The movie ‘Lucknow Central’beging with an impressive note just like a television show Prison Break. The movie begins with a day in the life of the Kishan Mohan Girhotra (the character played by Farhan Akhtar), a Moradabad guy. Kishan has a dream to form his own band and in order to achieve his dream he even records a demo CD and he hands it over to the topmost singer (the character played by Manoj Tiwari), but all his go into vain. Then he started thinking that a small town guy can’t crush a big dream.
One day, Kishan find himself into the prison on the charge of murdering an IAS officer. Kishan is very restless of forming his own band and in the prison, he somehow manages to convince a few of his inmates to join his band and on the occasion of Independence Day, Minister Pawan Singh Chaturvedi (the character played by the Ravi Kishan) decides that they will organise an inter-jail music competition. So he forms a band, which has a group of five criminal and they are just not planning to run away from the jail.
However, Kishan faces an opposition from Raja (the character played by Ronit Roy), but there in the jail, he met Gayatri Kashyap (the character played by Diana Penty) in the form of NGO activist and she help him to gain his confidence. Kishan’s band member includes Parminder Gill (Gippy Grewal), Victor Chattopadhyay (Deepak Dobriyal), Purushottam Madan Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) and Dikkat Ansari (Inaamulhaq).
During the practice, Kishan reveals the master plan of doing a jail break, but when actually the moment arrives all of his band members back out. Many of them are actually comparing the movie with the recently released movie ‘Quidi Band’, but ‘Lucknow Central’ has a better intensity rather than Qaidi Band.
However, writers have tried their best to carve out the believable characters. But at some point, it felt like the makers have desperately attempted to give the movie a distinct feel. While Ronit Roy has always mastered such roles because this is all he does in every movie.
Many a time it happens that there are a lot of loopholes in the script sometimes the character in the movie forgets the surname and other times they wait for the opportune moment without realizing it’s already gone. There is a scene in the movie when all his inmates thump their plates against the wooden table. However, the visuals do not suggest any change in the moment of the actor’s hand. He and his friends keep banging the plate with the same speed, but every such silly mistake takes the audience’s attention away.
Director Ranjit Tiwari used a very old method of filmmaking and that seems to be convenient. He used that method in the movie when dead hero used to return in the climax. He is much concerned about the whistles rather than on the impact of the continuous scene. Director Ranjit tried to pay tribute to Orson Welles and Agneepath in his own way, but nothing has actually given the sense of urgency it needs to look like a jail break.
The finale song of the music competition is the rehearsed version of Monsoon Weddings Kavan Kavan and even that is let down. The makers keep delaying the movie for no apparent reason and then the movie becomes really tough to hold the attention for good 147 minutes.
However, Farhan Akhtar’s performance in the movie is not in the same orbit just like his earlier blockbuster movie ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’. We can not deny the fact that you can not just take your eyes off from his character. Through out the movie, he has a spark in his eyes to achieve his dream of forming a band. Farhan own a movie like a king he gives all his efforts just to make the film a hit. However, his other band members supported him in at their best.
Actress Diana is super confident with her role of an NGO activist. Diana’s confrontation with the Ronit Roy is really well shot taken. We can not deny the fact that actor Ronit Roy has done many such roles like this and rest of the actors help the movie to9 move forward. A big thanks to Ravi Kishan and Dobriyal for bringing some humor in the movie.
However, ‘Lucknow Central’ fails to utilize its resources and the makers have lost the chance to make a really engaging film.