{"id":593,"date":"2010-08-01T16:04:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T16:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/08\/movie-review-once-upon-a-time-in-mumbai-2.html"},"modified":"2017-10-15T20:07:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:07:33","slug":"movie-review-once-upon-a-time-in-mumbai-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/08\/movie-review-once-upon-a-time-in-mumbai-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Once upon a time in Mumbai"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"Rating : Above average (3.9\/5)<\/b>
\nGenre : Drama<\/b>
\nYear : 2010<\/b>
\nRunning time : 2 hours 5 minutes<\/b>
\nDirector : Milan Luthria<\/b>
\nCast : Ajay Devgun, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Randeep Hooda, Prachi Desai<\/b>
\nKid rating : PG-13<\/b>
\n
\n<\/b>
\nONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI : The Mafia is here again !<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce upon a time in Mumbai\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s a longish title, but it\u2019s a good-ish film. My favorite genre, this is a crime thriller featuring the mafia, during the 60s and the 70s. So you have the tight churidaars and the big hair-dos, the almost Eastman color, and the sideburns. You also have Ajay Devgn<\/a><\/strong> in the genre he was born to play \u2013 the dark, brooding, principled gangster. An orphan, surviving on the streets of Mumbai, through his street-smarts, Devgan is Sultan Mirza. Resourceful Mirza learns the ways of the world and takes to smuggling. A born leader he stops small-time goons from warring with each other and unites them against the law.<\/p>\n

Along the way, he develops a relationship with beautiful film superstar Rehana (Kangana Ranaut). Also in his employ is Shoaib Khan(Emraan Hashmi), an ambitious young upstart of a goon, who wants to take Sultan\u2019s place as the head of Mumbai\u2019s underworld. To make things a little more interesting we also have diligent policeman ACP Agnel Wilson (Randeep Hooda) who\u2019s hot on Mirza\u2019s heels.<\/p>\n

Milan Luthria directs this film and handles it pretty well for the most part. The story is strong except for a few unfathomable turns, and it is multi-layered bringing in many interesting sub-plots, like that of Rihana\u2019s dwindling filmi fortunes and Shoaib\u2019s patient lover. On the negative side it suffers from some shoddy editing and falters a little on the pace, moving a tad slow. Thus it is not as crisp as Company (and I compare this with Company, since it is so strongly the same genre, and features the same lead protagonist), nor is it swift and smart like Maqbool<\/a>.<\/strong> It is rather like a staid, plodding animal, but so devoted and intent on it\u2019s purpose that you can\u2019t help but pay attention to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce\u201d features a great cast. Devgn gets full marks, and Hashmi who isn\u2019t my favorite actor, does wonders, proving he can act when given direction. Ranaut looks very pretty in the overdone mascara and the humongous hair-buns, and acts her part very well. Now if only they could dub her weakling of a voice all would be well with the world ! Prachi Desai in her lovelorn, domestic doormat avatar, as Shoaib\u2019s love interest comes across with feeling. A fit and athletic Hooda suits the role of a policeman on the prowl.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an item number for all you folks feeling left out of the mix. Model and wanna-be actress Gauhar Khan (last seen in the wonderful Rocket<\/strong> Singh<\/strong><\/a>) dances to the remixed-redone \u201cParda\u201d. The music is melodious \u2013 \u201cPee loon\u201d by Mohit Chauhan has refrains of Sufi music, while \u201cBaburao mast hai\u201d by Mika has a happy-go-lucky effervescence. A high quality soundtrack, this one \u2013 Pritam strikes again.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t recommend this film for kids under 13 because of all the violence, and some suggestive scenes, but for all you adults looking for a solid, story-based drama, this is a definite must-see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Above average (3.9\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2010 Running time : 2 hours 5 minutes Director : Milan Luthria Cast : Ajay Devgun, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Randeep Hooda, Prachi Desai Kid rating : PG-13 ONCE UPON … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[88,24,76,14,28,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-88","category-action","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-rating-pg13","category-recommended"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":6,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Above average (3.9\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2010 Running time : 2 hours 5 minutes Director : Milan Luthria Cast : Ajay Devgun, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Randeep Hooda, Prachi Desai Kid rating : PG-13 ONCE UPON … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-9z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7437,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/7437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}