Sankat City

Although you might not have heard about it at all, Sankat city is a delightful surprise. First time director Pankaj Advani delivers a very enjoyable two hours – on what must have been a very tight budget. The cost cutting is visible in the opening scenes, where the Chunkey Pandey scenes look quite … handycam-ish. But the distraction is not for long and you soon adjust to the cinematography. The opening credits of the movie themselves look very 70s-ish, a-la Johnny Gaddar.

In a movie such as this, its is best not to talk about the story-line. Lets talk about the nuts instead.

• Faujdar bhai – Bhai-cum-money lender. Devoted follower of Swamiji. Uses a pair of dice to decide how many days to grant to a defaulting borrower and has a hitman named Lovely.
• Swamiji – Compulsive carnivore without too much spirituality and a liking of hot tub baths
• Gogi – Film director who is ready to hang up his boots and open a film studio out of the city. And to make his last film a hit, he wants to kill off his flop hero on the movie sets itself.
• Lingam – Gogi’s assistant director. Devoted to his boss, but has only one wish – Aishwarya Rai must come for the studio opening, minus Abhishek
• Paschisia – Builder. Owes Faujdar bhai 2 crores and is about to default. Loves popcorn and the ladies, but stomach is a problem
• Guru – Small time car thief. Along with his senile chacha Ganpat, runs a well oiled carjacking business.
• Mona – street-smart con artist who doesn’t mind using her feminine charms to lure the likes of Paschisia. But cant stop spouting Bengali
• Philip Phattu – Faujdar’s driver and Mona's erstwhile partner-in-crime. Apropos to his name, doesn’t have any cojones at all. Dreams of marrying a prostitute
• Suleiman Supari – hitman without any scruples, with a liking of shiny gold shirt buttons

If some of the characters appear familiar to you, it is because such madcap gangster movies have recently started appearing with regularity. The closest I can come to describing Sankat City is as a sort of mixture of 99 and Ek Chalis Ki Last Local. While the story appears madcap, the entire flow is very seamless and the situations are genuinely laugh out loud. And the entire madness resolves neatly at the end.

Performance is top notch all across – Chunkey Pandey is probably the only weak link, but he hardly has a role. Biggest surprise was Rimi Sen – her acting was much better than I remember. Kay Kay Menon plays a lighter role with aplomb and Lingam, Ganpat etc are a hoot.

Its still playing a couple of shows at most multiplexes and given the state of this week’s releases (Luck & Night at The Museum 2), you are better off catching this gangster caper.