Movie Review: Lucknow Central

Movie Review: Lucknow Central
Rating: 3/5
Director: Ranjit Tiwari
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Diana Penty, Gippy Grewal, Deepak Dobriyal, Ronit Roy, Inaamulhaq

Lucknow Central Movie Trailer

Like TV show Prison Break, Lucknow Central begins on an impressive note. We meet Kishan Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar), a Moradabad guy, who wants to form his own band.

This is a distant vision, but he believes small towns can’t crush a big dream. Switching accents between urban, semi-urban and rural, Farhan Akhtar somehow finds himself in the jail on the charge of murdering an IAS officer.  Follow Spotlifeasia for the latest Entertainment and Lifestyle news.

He manages to convince a few inmates, a la Prison Break, to join his band, but the real idea behind the move is much more dangerous and can lead to total devastation. This band, a group of five criminals, has its reasons to run away from the jail, but one person is standing between them and the world outside: Jailor Shrivastava (Ronit Roy).

Barring the fact that Lucknow Central (coincidentally) shares a major portion of its film premises with the recently released Qaidi Band, one just cannot deny the bare fact that the script (Ranjit Tiwari, Aseem Arora) of Lucknow Central, comes across as one of the most appealing scripts of the year. Even though Lucknow Central enjoys an identity of its own, comparisons are inevitable with films like Shawshank Redemption and our very own Qaidi Band, which did have a ‘first mover advantage’.

After having gained his experience as an Assistant Director, Ranjit Tiwari makes an extremely promising debut as a director in Bollywood. While he tries his best to establish the film’s premise and all the characters in the first half itself, there are many places where the film seems to revolve and rotate on a single track and takes too long to arrive at a point. This could have been grossly avoided. The second half turns out to be a treat to watch. No sooner the film finds its ground, it gathers pace which continues till the end. With Lucknow Central, Ranjit Tiwari announces his arrival in Bollywood as one of the names to watch out for.

As for the music of the film, barring a couple of songs like the impressive ‘Teen Kabootar’ and ‘Kaavaan Kaavaan’, the film does not have any memorable songs. The film’s background score is commendable.

Farhan Akhtar. The name says it all. Even though his performance in Lucknow Central may not be in the same orbit as his earlier classics like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and likes, the fact also remains that you just cannot just take your eyes off from his character even for a single moment. The feebleness that he exudes as a financially crippled aspiring singer, his anxiousness when he tries to hand over a demo CD to Manoj Tiwari, his helplessness in the jail which is followed by a spark in his eyes when he realises his dream of forming a band, Farhan Akhtar own the film like a king. Giving him ample support are the awesome foursome Gippy Grewal, Deepak Dobriyal, Rajesh Sharma and Inaamulhaq, who have their moments of fame under the sun.

Diana Penty, on the other hand, is super confident in her role of an NGO activist. Her confrontations with Ronit Roy are really well shot. Speaking of Ronit Roy, even though he looks convincingly menacing, one cannot deny the fact that we have seen him doing the same kind of roles in many films before. Ravi Kishan as the ‘supercool cum calm minded cum sarcastic’ minister is really lovable and remarkable. Rest of the actors help the film move forward.

For all those who have not seen Qaidi Band, we are sure that you will take an instant liking for Lucknow Central for its innovative script and screenplay. The movie will work, but, only if the word of mouth publicity is extremely strong. Still, the film is recommended by us purely for its innovative script and stellar performances by the lead actors.