lance c
A unique movie with a banging soundtrack
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
'Banjo' is a passable musical drama that tries nearly every trick in the book to appear convincing. The music as such wasn't groundbreaking to be honest. Performance-wise, Riteish did a decent job. The plot and setting tend to remind one of a Malayalam musical - "Millennium Stars".
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
Full Review
mirza m
Street dancing and street music are the most underrated art forms in any country. Be it in the West or India, street artists do not get the same kind of respect and accolade as established artists. But, little do we know that these street performers have immense talent that it is truly hard to believe. The concept of street stars becoming mainstream superstars stems heavily from the Step Up series. It has also been adapted and done to death in Bollywood. This film is nothing different. This Ravi Jadhav film has a simple story that doesn't demand your attention if you've seen the likes of ABCD series or even Rock On. The milieu of the film is somewhere the middle ground between the films of these spaces. The setting is of Mumbai slums and Banjo players who take their music off the streets to the real music circuit, an impossible feat. On paper, this must've sounded phenomenal, there is patriotism, class dynamics, and the politics of the music industry. In short, it is a potent story with multiple complexities to explore. But you wish director Jadhav had focused on detailing, his characters, story or the plot. In the case of any other debutant director, this would've been an excusable offense. But then a National Award winning director is supposed to stand for a more evolved, path-breaking cinema (he is famously known for his Marathi language films). The film does talk about the issues the street performers face & the whole setting of this 137-minute-long film is quite engaging, yet somehow with a mundane cliché filed screenplay the film fails to make much impact. The story follows an American born DJ Chris (Nargis Fakhri), who upon hearing an audio clip from her sound specialist friend (Luke Kenny) in Mumbai, flies down in search of this nameless street band in hopes to record two songs for a New York music festival. In order to get access to the slums, she is forced by the uncle of her friend, who happens to run a research agency, to do a report on the slums. Enter the street level goon / extortionist Taraat (Riteish Deshmukh), who is assigned to Chris as her local guide. Little does Chris know that the nameless band she is searching for is run by Taraat and his band of merry men, Grease (Dharmesh Yelande), Paper (Aditya Kumar) and Vaajya (Raja Menon). The remaining crux of the film is about how Chris finds out about Taraat's banjo and how the band faces rejections and rides away to glory. Director Ravi Jadhav sets the right tone, right from the first scene with the quintessential foot-tapping Ganapati song. The conflict of the band with the society, rival bands and more importantly, within them, are the major elements in the screenplay which connect well. However, while the emotional quotient and conflicts do manage to keep the interest alive (somewhat though!), the screenplay is predictable from the word go. As the band's journey to become successful is pretty smooth and without any hassles, the intense moments of struggle to fight against all odds are missing. With a lack of novelty factor and a few half-baked sub-plots, the director mildly manages to hold your attention after a point of time. The story had the potential to touch many other social evils and break several stereotypes about the slum culture in Mumbai, however too much emphasis on the romantic track acts as a spoil sport. After a point, when the narrative is set - tracing the story of underdogs making it big - the story begins to meander. You'll get the Rock On feels when the infighting within the band begins. As a template of the genre, this is still acceptable. But there is no logic to explain why the director loses himself in subplots dealing with a land mafia. A scene from Savdhaan India recurs because of a murder ploy. The film is a bag full of clichés that just ceases to catch your attention after a point. She roams around looking for them for a large part of the first half of the film. The film does feature all those clichéd scenes of a naive NRI wearing tight revealing clothes roaming around in the slums of Mumbai, while the slum dwellers stare at her with their mouths wide open. Once, she finds them and obviously Riteish Deshmukh's character falls in love with her. They start by playing at clubs in Mumbai. Cue more clichés: there's also parts where clubs don't allow them inside and treat them badly, because they are street artists but obviously all this rejection gives them ammunition to do more and rise from the ashes. As long as the film sticks to bantering, it does a good job. Ravi manages to bring smiles on our faces with jokes that ring true. There is silly humor done well, Riteish bringing in his innocence and charm, to woo people. the film's problem is that it bites in more than it can chew. Had the story stayed with the spirit of Banjo and music of the streets of Mumbai, it would've been fabulous. The one thing Ravi does flawlessly is celebrating the city of Mumbai, its indomitable spirit, its unending vibrancy, its energy, all of these find a perfect homage in the film. The camaraderie between characters is excellent. But the best part of the film is the street camaraderie between Tarrat Bhai and his merry band of uniquely named fellow 'taporis'. There is love and warmth here and it works very well. It would have been even better if the cross cultural bond between Chris and her 'Tarrot' had been fleshed out less awkwardly than the way it is. Vishal-Shekhar work with the music is highly appreciable. They had just provided the best suiting music at every stage. While the execution is pretty formulaic, the performances are quite heartfelt. Riteish Deshmukh has always been a good actor but is unfortunately way too underrated. In spite of his versatile acting skills and being a biggie in Marathi cinema, he has not been praised much in Bollywood. All he has received are side roles which aren't so important or multi-starrer films where his talent just gets lost completely. Here, he has done complete justice to the role he played. His constant wits yet sticking to his raw Mumbaiyya character will make everyone smile wide. Nargis Fakhri, who is often known as a bad actress does a good job here. She looks gorgeous and for a change contributes to a film. Luke Kenny plays his part well. The rest of cast is alright. On the whole, 'Banjo' is a sincere and well intentioned film that has some watchable sequences and an awesome Deshmukh in the lead, but is dragged down by a predictable screenplay.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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