Mumbai Saga (2021) :
Movie Review -
Mumbai Saga was in making when Bollywood was doing good with Action flicks, especially right after John Abraham had success like Satyameva Jayate. Sanjay Gupta known for making typical entertainers in this genre came up with an idea of journey of Bombay becoming Mumbai and how gangwars and cops had several remarkable events in the time that should be told to current generation. Mumbai Saga finds a good cast and nice set up to showcase it but Director's outdated vision and literally B Grade presentation takes everything away from the film.
The plot of the movie is set in the era of the 80s and 90s which were marked as a transformed period of Mumbai. It was supposed to present Bombay's transformation hit by national events but eventually it forgets to show any of them. A simple hardworking young man Amartya Rao (John Abraham) goes to become a gangster who now wants to rule the city with the help political giant Bhau (Mahesh Majarekar). As expected he kills some big names and then a brave but money-seeker Police Officer Vijay (Emraan Hashmi) finds interest in ending Amatya's reign. Mumbai Saga had a chance to take references from big issue like 'Mills Shut down' but unfortunately it fails and doesn't even understand the Idea of it.
Mumbai Saga is not an acting oriented film so all they had to do is keep the swag alive while delivering the massy dialogues. John Abraham as Amartya is physically terrific and delivers the dialogues with smashing attitude. The same is followed by Emraan Hashmi who doesn't match the physical attitude of John but still packs a solid punch with conversational dhaasu dialogues. However, the acting is not that good to be noticed and wasn't even expected at first place. The supporting cast is okay and well supported by Kajal Aggarwal, Rohit Roy, Mahesh Manjarekar, Gulshan Grover, Amol Gupte, Prateik Babbar and cameo of Suniel Shetty.
Talking about the technical aspects, Mumbai Saga isn't pleasing anywhere except for the loud background score. The dialogues are damn hard-hitting and whistle worthy but only if it had correct situations and right commands of skillful execution. The cinematography is decent, the action sequences are fine and the Music is somehow suitable to its massy theme. Mumbai Saga falters in the screenwriting because of utter non sense theories and typical 80s thinking from the writer. Almost 95% of dialogues and 90% of the scenes are predictable, one can even predict the dialogues and scenes just before it happens on screen.
Sanjay Gupta isn't a name known for high quality material in Bollywood but he has made some watchable crime action dramas before so there was a level of expectations set for him that he can deliver a one time watchable flick anytime. With Mumbai Saga that bar is down by one level which certainly hurts his position. From the trailer itself the film gives you the idea of what's going on and how's it put on screen so of course you shouldn't be expecting anything top class. But whatever your expectations are, Mumbai Saga still doesn't fullfill them or rather it lowers them. Overall, it's a stuff that should be skipped but if you are one of those who is die hard fan of Mass Mania and doesn't care how it comes then Mumbai Saga could be one time flick for you.
RATING - 4/10*
