Mumbai Mirror Review

There are certain films from which you have set expectations. A lot of action, some twists and turns, heavy duty dialogue-baazi, confrontation between hero and the villain, a couple of item numbers and some liberal dose of skin show that would round it all up into a quintessential 'masala affair'. 'Mumbai Mirror' turns out to be one such film.

Sachiin, a cop with a chip on his shoulders, is out to clean up the system, both internal as well as external to his own department. However he isn't naive to the reality around him as well. He knows when to move ahead, take a step back or just lie low. Metaphorically, this is demonstrated through a game of chess that he plays with the gang-lord Prakash Raj. In this deadly play, many lives are lost, secrets unearthed and dirty linen washed.

However what makes 'Mumbai Mirror' interesting at numerous junctures is the way the protagonist goes about understanding the gravity of the situation and holding on to his anger instead of reacting recklessly. This is what makes the proceedings engaging for a good duration, especially in the last 30 minutes of the film when everything starts coming together.

The reason why he is so trigger friendly, his numerous interactions with co-cop Prashant Narayanan, the relationship he shares with his uncle, Mahesh Manjrekar, who is again a cop, numerous face-offs that he indulges with Prakash Raj and the manner in which he ultimately emerges victorious - all of this does results in many spikes that the film enjoys.

However what brings the film down are the item numbers that simply break the narrative. Agreed that for a movie of this genre it was pretty much required that single screen audience were kept happy. In fact this also forms a target market for the film.

Not just that as the twin love stories that Sachiin indulges in are hardly impressive. The relationship that he shares with Prakash Raj's moll, Gihana Khan, is bewildering to say the least as you don't know till the very end that whether there was anything serious between the duo or not. Even weaker are the interactions between him and Vimala Raman, who plays a journalist. Ditto for Aditya Pancholi's character that could have been interesting but doesn't fit in well.

Thankfully, this is compensated to some extent due to some good screen time and importance that the characters played by Sudesh Berry (a CBI Officer), Mahesh Manjrekar and Prakash Raj get. All of this fits well into the game of chess and with Sachiin doing reasonably well as an actor (after a rather subtle debut in 'Aazaan'), you know that some things have actually gone right in the film.

Since 70s, one has seen quite a movies made around cops taking on the baddies. However the films that immediately come to mind while watching 'Mumbai Mirror' are Govinda starrers 'Khuddaar' and 'Gambler'. For those who came in late, there was a time when Govinda had actually done some action films outside his comfort zone of David Dhawan comedies and aforementioned films were the ones that had actually done well too. Now with Sachiin Joshi getting into the masala mode, there are reference points being drawn from there.

Rating: **1/2