After hit takes on Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet, Vishal Bhardwaj\u2019s Romeo and Juliet adaptation sees dead-eyed lovers drag one another to gutter and grave<\/p>\n
It must be Misbegotten Adaptations week<\/a>. This Hindi gangland epic\u2019s credentials are impeccable: director Vishal Bhardwaj previously wowed with textured, inventive variations on Macbeth (Maqbool, 2003), Othello (Omkara, 2006) and Hamlet (Haider, 2014). But rather than a straightforward modernisation of Romeo and Juliet, this latest revisits a grisly true-crime story ripped from Hussain Zaidi\u2019s Mafia Queens of Mumbai, the book that previously inspired Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s 2022 hit, Gangubai Kathiawadi<\/a>. The results align Bhardwaj with the newly lurid turn mainstream Bollywood has taken with recent smashes Animal and Dhurandhar, but it\u2019s jarring to witness, as if Kenneth Branagh had followed his turn-of-the-90s Shakespeare successes by trying for Natural Born Killers.<\/p>\n For Venice (or Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Venice Beach), Bhardwaj swaps the Mumbai underworld of the 1990s, ushering in the movies\u2019 first morally degenerate Romeo. Shahid Kapoor\u2019s Hussein Ustara \u2013 nicknamed Romeo \u2013 is a heavily tattooed bellower employed as a hitman for a local godfather; his Juliet (Animal\u2019s Triptii Dimri) an aggrieved widow clutching a sizeable hitlist. These two are star-crossed: he rescues her amid a bungled assassination attempt on the lawyer smearing her late husband, earning them both powerful foes. The fish tank through which Leo glimpsed Claire Danes here abuts the bed to which this Romeo takes two escorts while his Juliet listens in. Happy Valentine\u2019s Day, everybody.<\/p>\n