• Friday, July 10, 2009

• Country:

  India

• Language:

  Hindi

• Runtime:

  120 min

2009

Guru (KK Menon) is a smalltime car thief. Ganpat, who owns a dilapidated garage, is his partner-in-crime. Guru wacks cars and Ganpat (Dilip Prabhawalkar) gives them a make-over in order to sell them for tidy profits.

One night, while returning to his kholi, Guru chances upon a swank Mercedes parked outside a brothel, unattended. He steals the car and takes it to Ganpat. While working on the car they discover a sum of Rs. 1 crore in the boot. They are delirious with joy at the unexpected turn of events and start spinning dreams. Little do they know what lays in store - for the car and the money belongs to a vicious gangster/loan shark called Faujdaar (Anupam Kher)!

Guru's plans ricochet when he tries to sell the stolen Mercedes to Suleman Supari (Rahul Dev), a hitman, who recognizes the car and notifies his friend Faujdaar. Scared for his life, Guru squeals that the moolah is in Ganpat's garage. Faujdaar sends his henchman with Guru to retrieve the cash.

Unknown to them, the paranoid Ganpat has hidden the money in what he thinks is a safe place in his garage, because he's afraid that thieves might rob him off the cash. By the time henchman Lovely and Guru reach the garage, Ganpat is involved in an accident, which results in a temporary loss of memory!

Guru can't find the money anywhere and he has no clue where the amnesic Ganpat has hidden it. A vengeful Faujdaar decides to bump off Guru, who pleads for his life and begs for a chance. The sadistic Faujdaar gives him a grace period of 3 days to cough up the dough.

With no hope in sight, a dejected Guru almost resigns himself to death, when he bumps into Mona, a con woman who had teamed up with him in a smalltime con job a few years back. The heist had been a success, but Mona had vamoosed with all the money, leaving Guru in a lurch. She's right now in the process of putting a sting on a builder, Pachisia (Yashpal Sharma), for which, she requires a partner. Since Guru needs the dough quick, he hesitantly teams up with Mona (Rimi Sen).

Mona and Guru successfully con a large sum of money off the builder only to lose it again to a strange quirk of fate. The story then weaves itself to a thrilling climax, going through a series of hilarious events, comic situations and nerve wracking moments.

There are also thrills and spills with other characters including Chunkey Pandey in a double role as Sikandar Khan the actor and his body double, Manoj Pahwa as the director and Sanjay Mishra as his assistant, Hemant Tiwari as Philip Fattoo, Virendra Singh as Faujdar's guru among others, each bringing in his own dose of laughter.

Will Guru be able to return the money to Faujdaar, who is a great stickler for time? Will Mona get the better of Guru yet again? Will the poor Ganpat regain his lost memory?

Will the sankat be over for all the people involved? Well, one finds that out as the story deliciously unfolds itself - layer by layer.

Maxabout Review

An Entertaining Comedy for the Discerning Classes. This 'City' is worth a visit!

SANKAT CITY may not boast of stars to lure the audiences, it may not have a colossal canvas (on the contrary, the making is very basic), it may not have a terrific musical score to act as a hook [there are hardly any songs here], but SANKAT CITY succeeds, and succeeds largely, in its endeavour: Make the viewer laugh at the right places.

One walks in with zilch expectations (the promos don't do justice to the product), but when you make an exit from the audi, it's with the feeling that the 2 hours were well spent.

Not all of us can think whacky or come up with a crazy madcap comedy like SANKAT CITY. It requires a wild and imaginative mind to come up with one and most importantly, execute it with panache. The direction of debutant Pankaj Advani is up to the mark. The director should be appreciated for his effort in stitching such a narrative together in a film and forcing the audiences to sit throughout without boredom. His most important achievement is that he was able to extract best performance from each of his cast members, as if they were tailor made for the role.

Though the film takes the audience to a roller coaster ride in the first half, it falters in the second half. That's because things stagnate and even get monotonous for a few minutes, before the climax strikes again. However, the narrative gains momentum once again before pre -climax, where a bulldozer is shown to be ramming in to the car load of currencies. Music is just passable.

SANKAT CITY is more like a relay. One incident leads to another, so on and so forth and it keeps you involved and entertained for most parts. But the most stunning sequence is reserved in the pre-climax when a bulldozer runs over a bagful of currency. A brilliant sequence!

Rimi Sen, who is Mona, the accomplice and street smart con woman, plays her character to perfection. Her dress sense fully complements her acting, which is definitely top notch.