Lal Baadshah ‘Baadshah’ all set to turn your face red. Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Manisha Koirala, Shilpa Shetty Director: K.C.Bokadia

It’s high time that Amitabh Bachchan gets an education. The angry young man of the yesteryears hasn’t realized that he is not young anymore and it doesn’t suit him working with actresses half his age. It is surely distressing to see the person who at one time was the indisputable baadshah of the silver screen and ruled the heart of every Indian, fall to such level that even his most ardent fans have started disliking him. But he can’t be blamed for this reversal of fortunes. Can he? The most convincing argument that is being shared is that there is great scarcity of good directors who have the caliber of bringing the best out of him. Also, the kind of roles he is being offered are not in accordance with his age and are mostly the modern versions of characters already played by him in his earlier films.

In the process, he often comes in conflict with Raghuvaran who wants to be the underworld king of Mumbai. Raghuvaran is a south Indian actor and is better known for his role of a psycho baddie in the film Shiva, starring Nagarjun. Others baddies include Mukesh Rishi, who plays superintendent of police and brother of Raghuvaran and Mahesh Anand, their uncle, who is a known swindler. Amarish Puri is the leader of all, who is hungry for power because earlier he was a minister with a small-time raja and still reminisces his old times.

As such, the story has no surprises or twists. It is an old hat with lot of patches. K C Bokadia, the director of the film who gave Amitabh a much needed hit, Aaj Ka Arjun, on his return, makes a real mess out of it.

Amitabh, as usual, is brilliant especially when he plays a drunkard. He is amazingly comfortable with the Bihari accent and delivers his dialogues effortlessly.

The two heroines are not more than fillers who vanish and reappear only to sing songs. Manisha Koirala, a life insurance agent, falls for our hero and religiously pursues him. On other hand, Shilpa Shetty plays the daughter of a lawyer, Mohan Joshi, who has been held captive by the baddies. She just acts as a messenger and passes on the messages to the hero.

Nirupa Roy does the role of Amitabh’s mother for the umpteenth time. She hasn’t lost her charm of playing a long-suffering mother but seems to be uncomfortable with her new dentures. Lal Singh’s father, played by Amitabh himself, is more or less a reincarnation of senior Amitabh of Aakhari Rasta.

After watching the movie one feels that Bokadia did not do his homework properly. The editing and cinematography are below average. Even the action sequences by the great Veeru Devgan seem to lack their usual punch. Music by Aadesh Shrivastava is not up to the mark. The only saving grace is the catchy song - Dhano Ki Aankh.

The saddest part of all is that Amitabh has been wasted in the movie. Earlier, he had the caliber of salvaging below average films but now it seems that he is too old to carry films on his shoulders singly.