Review by Subhash K Jha: It is so heartening to see our cinema get out of the hero-heroine-villain claptrap, to explore the wicked side of every character, good, bad and ugly.
In Ek Chatur Naar (the Padosan song is no indicator of which way the crooks crumble in this snakes-and-ladders crime teaser) Divya Khosla, who is by now earned herself the reputation of exploring unconventional characters, plays Mamata, a feisty, no-hold-barred chawl-confined desperado who doesn’t believe in destiny: she makes her own destiny and boy! Is she adamant!
It would be a criminal offence to let the plot out of the gag. Suffice it to say that it all begins with the smartphone of an oversmart power broker Abhishek Varma (a gaunt Neil Nitin Mukesh, well played) falling into Mamata’s hands. What follows is engaging and blissfully unethical bedlam with long passages of hot pursuit.
Besides its sassy at times, wobbly, originality, what really caught my attention is the extensive outdoor locations: traffic signal, overbridges, busy roads and a looming feeling of dread, propel the plot.
Divya Khosla and Neil Nitin Mukesh lock horns with relish. They are on top of the game, both chew into their parts to the bone, at times holding fort even when the screenplay (involving for devious masterminds Jay Master, Umesh Shukla, Deepak Nirman and Siddharth Goel) derails dangerously.
The second half gets problematic, with the shero’s daredevilish character crossing boundaries of plausibility. What saves the day is the spirit of serendipity which courses through the energetic arteries of this believe-it-or-nuts tale of a woman who takes on the powerful plutocrats and emerges on the top.
Full credit to Divya Khosla for giving her all, and then some more. She makes Mamata believable, even though the screenplay fails her. Chhaya Kadam, feted globally for her role in All We Imagine As Light and Laapata Ladies, is embarrassingly over-the-top as Mamata’s farting, belching alcoholic mother-in-law. The character was presumably meant to be “cute”. Kadam makes it gross.
The supporting cast features some interesting actors, including Sushant Singh as a one-eyed conniving cop and Zakir Hussain as a cheesy politician. But this is essentially a two-handler taken out of its traditional indoor location into the streets, chawls, trains, and the hustle and bustle of Lucknow. It throbs with life even when the writing slackens.
