Lack of imagination and an oddball cast lets down Rakesh Mehta's Life Ki Toh Lag Gayi, writes Shaikh Ayaz. Roughly translated into English the Hindi expression 'lag gayi' on which this film's title and theme is founded means 'screwed'.
It's a quadriptych; four different stories melting into one another. Along the way you wonder how people from such sharply polarised backgrounds could have any connection at all.
But, then, the idea of this seems embedded in the idea of Mumbai -- a melting pot, a potpourri in which anything can happen, to anyone and seemingly disconnected lives can come together to complete others.
The lives director Rakesh Mehta depicts are on the cusp of a breakdown. It begins with the voice of Sudhir Mishra introducing the city in its most over-used paean; if the narrator says nothing new, the camera captures nothing new.
Vignettes from Mumbai's daily life are pictured with postcard-style glimpses of Marine Drive, CST, Gateway of India and the ghettos. Mumbai deserves a better spin.
The first story is about a son seeking revenge for the deaths of his parents. The terrace of an under-construction high-rise, offering an eagle's eye view of Haji Ali, serves as builder Salman's (Kay Kay Menon) favourite spot where he appears from time to time to reconcile that personal loss.
His father (Jackie Shroff), an underworld don, and his mother, who cooked biryani in happier times, are apparently killed for no reason. This was intended to be a dramatic scene, one in which the grieving son is required to display emotional depth but it becomes, to borrow Naipaul's term, a mimic scene.
In another parallel track, Assistant Commissioner of Police Chautala (Manu Rishi Chadha)
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