A gambler without guts is like a girl without the figure,” Mumbai boy Arjun (Emraan Hashmi) reasons at the start of this latest attempt to push the Bollywood envelope.
Arjun has a sixth sense for predicting the outcome of cricket matches; he starts an illegal betting ring. It’s love at first sight for the impulsive Arjun when he spots Zoya (Sonal Chauhan) at a mall admiring a diamond ring. He smashes up the shop window in order to retrieve it for her.
“India is fine for dreaming; I want to make my heaven here!” Arjun declares when a shady don Abu (Jawed Sheikh) recruits him in order to fix the results of games being played in South Africa. Arjun and Zoya relocate to Cape Town.
When Shekhar (Samir Kochhar), a sandwich-munching cop reveals Arjun’s underworld connection to Zoya, she confronts him. Arjun decides to lead a clean life; he works as a bartender. When he realises that “honest life is hard work”, the addict Arjun decides to fix his last match, with disastrous consequences.
This topical film draws inspiration from the recent death of Bob Woolmer, the coach of the Pakistani cricket team who was found dead in his room in Jamaica in mysterious circumstances. But do not expect a deep exploration of corruption in the game and into the mindset of a young Indian man who perceives that quick wealth can be achieved via dubious means and by going abroad.
Instead, first-time director Kunal Deshmukh focuses on the tepid love story between the couple. His feeble solution is that it is the love of a good woman which will succeed in transforming Arjun from illegal match fixer to honest lover. Deshmukh is hindered in his task by his lead lady who has zero star presence. Hashmi is credible as the irredeemably misogynistic and volatile Arjun but his one dimensional character, presented as an amoral delusional shyster from the outset, lacks adequate emotional depth to evoke empathy.
There are the usual bolly-oddities: Cape Town cops speak fluent Hindi, Goa doubles for South Africa in places and most of the baddies appear to be Muslim. Pritam’s music is functional and forgettable.
Ultimately, with its unusual subject-matter, it may be easy to lavish fulsome praise on ‘Jannat’ but there is more to admire than to be moved by in this search for box-office heaven.
Director: Kunal Deshmukh, 140 mins, 12A, Subtitles
Stars: Emraan Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan, Samir Kochhar.
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