Bollywood Bakwas

Ram Gopal Varma’s underworld-meets-terrorism flick Contract is strictly is a timepass movie about a man on a mission to kill a dreaded terrorist.

If you expect some serious insight into the nexus between the Mumbai underworld and the terror network, let me state at the outset that you would be disappointed by ‘Contract’. At large, the film is a vendetta tale of an ex-army commando who infiltrates the underworld to get to the top terrorist responsible for the attacks that killed his wife and daughater.


At the center of the story is Aman Malik ( Adhvik Mahajan ) who is approached by a coffee-guzzling Mumbai cop for a special mission to nail the terrorists after a series of terror blasts in Delhi. Aman turns down the offer but has a rude awakening after his own wife and daughter is killed in another terror attack in Mumbai.

Devastated but vengeful, he agrees to the cop’s covert mission, assumes new identity as Amaan Ali Yusuf, and joins one of the two rival gangs as a first step to get to the neck of the top terrorist, Sultan.

On this mission, Aman has to shed a lot of blood, and bump off many people before he gets to his wanted man.

Honestly speaking, there has been an overkill of underworld films from Ram Gopal Varma . Satya and Company came at a time when the subject wasn’t much explored in Bollywood and Varma’s realistic and hard-hitting (at times even shocking) treatment of the subject caught the viewers’ fancy. But now, everyone’s seen that and done over with. Still, Varma keeps treading the beaten track and makes an utterly forgettable film like ‘Contract’.

The movie is full of all the trappings of a usual RGV gangster drama. It has shabby-looking, trigger-happy criminals and inside informants engaged in a war between rival gangs. It has a protagonist who utters a wisecrack whenever he opens his mouth, and leaves a trail of blood whenever attacked by rivals. It has a leading lady ( Sakshi Gulati ) who falls for the gun-wielding hero and accompanies him to some of his missions.

Technically, the film has a raw and rugged look with the camera lingering mostly on the close-ups of the actors. The background music is so loud at times that it almost screams how viewers ought to feel in a particular scene. The songs are forgettable.

Speaking of performances, newcomer Adhvik Mahajan has a notable screen presence. Though he doesn’t deliver anything truly outstanding, there is no trace of hamming in his acting, which is quite a feat for any newcomer. Sakshi Gulati’s role doesn’t have much meat, but she performs well.

As rival gangsters Upendra Limaye and Sumeet Nijhawan are brilliant. Upendra is particularly very spontaneous.

In a nutshell, ‘Contract’ is a timepass film at best.

Rating: 2/5