CAST : Urmila Matondkar, Sanjay Dutt  DIRECTION : Ramgopal Varma

Daud starts off promisingly with mysterious hints of the cargo seized by the customs on a dark night and the secretive effort of the home minister to get the said mysterious box which most definitely doesn’t contain gold rigeur to have a small time lovably scampish heroes to shaggy-haired, brawny-chested Sanjay Dutt wearing a silly, winsome grin most of the time, is a small time after a suitably laid back display of muscle power. But run from the police, and the baddies led by the eccentric Pinky (Paresh Rawal who bides his time to get climax).

Even as Varma’s film gets bloated with too many songs to fit every situation conceivable to the Hindi thriller, you feel a sneaking admiration for his chutzpah in taking calculated risks while he entices you into what is possibly the most unashamedly physical wooing game we have seen in Indian films to this day. Rahman’s background score strums, thrums and grunts in an orgiastic frenzy of mating animal sounds to the animal magnetism unleashed by Sanjay Dutt and Urmila Matondkar.

So you have the heroine Urmila (whose real screen name is kept tantalisingly unrevealed almost halfway by a camera which makes love to her long and lingeringly) sashaying into the frame in classic blue jeans for the collective delection of the audience. Bhavani- a most unlikely name for a pert and apparently amoral young woman who dances with as much abandon as a houri in an Arabian Nights paradise - hoists herself on Nandu and helps him escape.

As Nandu and Bhavani ride off to their tryst into the jungle, the posse of half-informed policemen led by Inspector Nair (Ashish Vidyarthi, an intelligently befuddled performance) blunders after them. But comic capers need even more meticulous care than straight drama. Varma is so taken up with set pieces tributes during the chase scenes that he has his pair stop by to do a parody of the usual jerks and jhatkas, smirks and swayings, just because the hero says he feels like singing!

As it is, we have had the pair slither about with sinuous serpentine passion to the throbbing sibilants of zahreela pyar and then, they have pranced around for the Shabba shabba hai ha number in ethnic chic and you even had Sanjay Dutt ride a buffalo, in an astute tribute to the Sunil Dutt of Mother India. The dishevelled escapees wander into a tribal village looking for board and lodge. They tell the villagers an interminable repetitive, deliberately circuitous story of how they wandered along. They come to a full-stop when it comes to the inevitable question of what happened next. The stalling is funny for a few minutes but the director is oblivious to the danger of this stalling as we apply to his own narrative. It is clever to play around with the basic elements of the narrative, and put off the what happens next if only you can engage the viewer with something we can safely overlook because all the people we see on the screen, with perhaps the exception of Pinky, are performers within strict parameters whose very superficiality we are asked to enjoy.

But Varma is more a craftsman who takes pains over the designer look of individual segments but seems to have lost the larger picture when he stops by for bits of filmic tomfoolery. Even fantasy must bow to narrative logic.

The cinematography veers from the subjectives of grandly conceived overhead shots. But what we remember most is the caressing attention lavished on Urmila’s perky derriere, whether in swaying motion or in-your-face provocative postures. The mood Varma wants to create is feline seduction, from purring kitten to snarling tigress even at the risk of being labelled voyeur. Sanjay Dutt’s loose limbed agility and sinewy grace complements this feeling look but you know whom the camera loves more.

Sanjay Chhel’s dialogue comes into its own only when Paresh Rawal tips over the edge into manic egoism. His ravings and rantings are edged with sly humour and savage satire. But you and I know who the audience are going to drool over. Oh yes, the saucy Miss Matondkar whose charms are so carefully showcased. But will this Bhavani go on to become an icon like Sholay’s Basanti 20 yeas from now? I guess not. Bhavani is more a poseur than a believable character, conjured out of the film maker’s mind obsessed with making a memorable pastiche of Hollywood and Bollywood.

Unfortunately for Varma, pastiche doesn’t work in the long run.

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