Shagird

Rating:**

‘Shagird’ sets out to be a gritty cop drama,and gets some of it right. Nana Patekar plays Crime Branch officer Hanumant Singh who has a thing for old Hindi movie songs,and who goes about his work with a one point agenda. Himself. He will do whatever it takes to stay on top of a shaky structure buoyed by greedy politician Rajmani Singh ( Hussain),and his pet crook Bunty Bhaiyya ( Kashyap); even when it comes to blooding straight-laced recruit Mohit ( Ahlawat) into his wicked ways.

Dhulia’s great ear for dialogue so evident in his superb debut ‘Haasil’,which had gone missing in ‘Charas’,is back : his characters speak as they ought to,even if Patekar sounds like he always does. But his cop is well-rounded,with a wife and child with whom he does I-love-my-family scenes,and with his colleagues and adversaries,with whose help he manages to extract whatever he thinks is his due.

The trouble with ‘Shagird’,despite its sharp,often funny exchanges,and a few spanking scenes,is that it is not new enough. Zakir Hussain’s neta who wouldn’t know a moral if it bit him in the face,is a good act. But it is familiar. Kashyap’s Bunty bhaiyya,which looks like a clear take-off on the real-life Rajju Bhaiyya ruling-from-the-jail history- sheeter,isn’t given enough teeth. And Rimi Sen’s improbable TV reporter is made to lose the plot,both of her arc,and the movie’s.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com