Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

Sultan Mirza starts in smuggling in Mumbai in the sixties and soon becomes the city's most powerful crime boss. Years pass. Young Shoaib grows up beside him, serves an apprenticeship, and in time begins to chart his own course. Sultan has rules; certain jobs he will not touch, certain lines he will not cross. Shoaib does not recognise those rules. The two men work the same trade in the same city and gradually come to stand against each other. A police inspector watches them both and waits for both of them to fall. Milan Luthria directs. Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut and Prachi Desai are in the cast. It is an Indian production. The film was inspired by Mumbai's real criminal history and the known crime bosses of the period, with the names changed. The matter it treats is a change of generation; the old generation has an honour of its own that the new one does not recognise. The film shows the city as a place changing from the sixties into the eighties. Ajay Devgn plays his character grave and measured, Emraan Hashmi ambitious and unrestrained. The narrative ties the romantic lines to the main plot but keeps them short. The film was a large box office success and led to sequels. The music and period songs carry the atmosphere of the narrative. The ending loses both men. Its limit is length; the narrative is long, there are repeating scenes, and the pace drops at times. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian gangster films and period drama. Who it is not for: it is long, the shape familiar, and the ending dark.