Dutt breathes plenty of life into Dhulia’s Gangster franchise
Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster 3 Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Jimmy Sheirgill, Mahie Gill, Chitrangda Singh, Kabir Bedi ★★★☆☆
Ahead of the release of Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster
3, director Tigmanshu Dhulia said that the franchise was following a pattern, with the gangster of the piece changing each time. Randeep Hooda was the first, Irrfan Khan the second, and Sanjay Dutt the third.
“If we don’t get a villain for the fourth part, I will play it,” Dhulia said, half-joking.
Clearly, he wants his pet project to continue. It’s safe to say, without giving too much of the thriller’s plot away, that the director wants to ensure the story has a future for the franchise.
Dutt does well in the role, despite not being in the best of light away from the film, with it being just two weeks after his controversial biopic,
Sanju, was released. But, the actor once again carries the role of a gangster well, as he has throughout his chequered career, from Naam to Khalnayak to Agneepath.
Dhulia’s first in the SBG series was in 2011 and the second was in 2013 with SBG
Returns. Following the first movie, the film’s director went on to deliver a string of critically acclaimed hits, such as
Pan Singh Tomar, Shahid and Gangs of Wasseypur. It looked like he could do no wrong. But then followed four flops – two with him as director and two as a producer. And so that’s where he stood at the release of SBG3, and with the controversial Dutt filling in.
The villain becomes the X-factor in the chemistry between royal couple Aditya Pratap Singh (played by Jimmy Sheirgill) and Madhvi Devi (Mahie Gill), who are both yearning for power and conspiring against each other while living in the same old mansion and searching for love in their own way.
Dhulia’s real challenge is to move the story into the modern era, while also acknowledging the past and not changing the backdrop of the protagonists too much. It is a battle of past and present, much like that of the royal families of the princely states during India’s post-independence period after 1947, when they had to give up their status and subsist on a privy purse from the government, up until 1971.
If you are wondering how much more play can still be extracted from a feuding couple, Dhulia’s script does well when it comes to settling you into the story. After seeing old mansions in the past two runs, the movie opens in modern-day London, cuts back into familiar royal territory and even sees characters being bugged, spy style. So plot twist is one test the director sails through comfortably.
With royalty coming to the fore here, the ensemble cast gets bigger and the conspirators more complicated, which keeps the drama going.
Another element for Dhulia was to see how actors like Sheirgill, Chitrangda Singh, Deepak Tijori, Kabir Bedi and Gill – no strangers to Bollywood – would match up to Dutt, especially Sheirgill, as he is the main lead in all three films of the franchise.
The three scenes where Sheirgill and Dutt come together stand out when it comes to dialogue delivery, with Gill also delivering a strong performance. This leads effortlessly to the climax, but that’s where it all falls apart.
There are mindless scenes of deceit, guns and even a mujra – the old form of dance that the royals in the medieval age patronised – that replace the mandatory item-girl song.
In fact, the ending makes you wonder if Dhulia got impatient and focused too much of his thinking looking ahead at the fourth part of the series. It also leads us to think that maybe Dhulia should have stuck to his roles as a writer and let someone else give the direction.