Sankat City: Money is Everything
According to Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret“, the Need of Money, is said to be the strongest attraction point in the Law of Attractions. When you have a strong urge to Need Money, it attracts an even stronger attraction of Needing More Money, thereby sparking off a huge chain reaction of an endless Need of Money. It is this Law of Needing more Money that drives all the characters of the mad caper Sankat City.
The story is essentially about…er…it’s hard to pinpoint as to who the story is
specifically about. It’s about money I guess and how the world revolves around it. Right from a driver who needs money to get the love of his life forever, to a loan shark who lives on revolving money with interest, to a small time car thief looking to strike rich a haul to a Godman who has all his bhakts in a trance so that his coffers may be filled, all of the characters take us through a merry go round in their quest of Needing more and more Money.
It starts out with a flop actor Sikander Khan (Chunkey Pandey) who is on his way to oblivion and has a debt to be paid back to Faujdar (Anupam Kher). At the same time the movie producer Gogi (Manoj Pahwa) is at his wits end in attempting to salvage a goner of a film. A real estate agent Pachisia (Yashpal Sharma) also owes money to Faujdaar and is targeted by Mona (Rimi Sen) who tries to con him off with the help of Guru (KK Menon).
I don’t know if Pankaj Advani has read Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency whose central character believes in the “fundamental interconnectedness of all things”. In Sankat City there seems to be the same fundamental interconnectedness of all things wherein all the characters are somehow connected to each other and their paths keep on crossing each other. In someone else’s hands perhaps it would have a hodge podge of madness, but the writing of Pankaj Advani ensures that there is a method to madness and it also keeps us entertained throughout. Nowhere else have I seen such a huge list of characters all of whom have almost an equal part to play in the movie.
Of the cast, KK Menon is surprisingly the one who fails to make a strong impact. Undoubtedly he’s an excellent actor, but his one time, KK is overshadowed by the ensemble cast. KK and his Chacha’s act in the beginning of the film was actually getting on my nerves. Anupam Kher, Yashpal Sharma, Hemant Pandey (simply brilliant), Sanjay Mishra and Manoj Pahwa deliver a knockout performance that keep the movie going & makes all the implausible situations seem possible. Rimi Sen does well, but her quasi romantic scenes with KK didn’t go down too well with me.
The movie seems to be shoddily shot in places and has a grainy look in many scenes. At first it seems a bit jarring but you soon get used to the jerks in the camera and actually start enjoying it. Undoubtedly, the hero of the movie is Pankaj Advani’s writing. The way the story weaves it’s way through many characters and it holds itself strongly in the climax is really commendable. Scenes like the one in the hospital and all the scenes involving the Swamiji are a real hoot. And the garbage dump scene is not going to be forgotten in a hurry.
The writing and an excellent performance by the ensemble cast makes Sankat City a good watch.
Now eagerly waiting for Taadjan.
Tags: Anupam Kher, KK Menon, Pankaj Advani, Review, Rimi Sen, Sankat City
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Onir
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Pankaj Advani
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Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
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Pankaj…your day is made…Taran gave you 3 1/2 stars…
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/13667/index.html
Ye server ka time galat kaiku hai!
Neat review Sudhir…very pro!
Good review Sudhir, though I have a difference of opinion about the performances, especially Rimi. IMO she was brilliant with her true blue bong lingo.
It was great to meet you
@Sudhir – Haven’t read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency , care to give me some more dope on it? Don’t tell me to google it!
Nice review. Out of curiosity, which scenes did you find shoddily shot? Taadjan coming soon… from concrete jungle to a real jungle, hope the journey doesn’t take too long.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a novel by Douglas Adams.
Dirk Gently is an extremely quirky detective who believes that a case can be solved by finding out the connections that different objects have with different people who may not be connected with the case at all. He is not the kind of guy who believes in suspects clues and all that mere mortals like us look for. And with this technique he manages to crack the case.
We attribute his success to sheer luck, while he attributes it to have a holistic look at the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. A must read book, as is any Douglas Adams book.
The shoddiness that I was referring to is mainly the grainy looking scenes that are there. For instance:the song picturised in the bar. The funny thing in that scene was, whenever the dance was being shot it was grainy, but when it was cut to Mona talking to Pachisia, the grains went off. I know u might call it intentional, but it was too inconsistent.