Shanghai
(U/A, Drama)
Dir: Dibakar Banerjee
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Abhay Deol, Prosenji, Kalki Koechlin
Rating:u00a0

This paper’s four stars for Rowdy Rathore weren’t taken too kindly by serious cinema viewers, some have even alleged corruption. You should know therefore how this four-week old reviewer is going out on a moral limb to give another film four stars in the very next week. Shanghai is a dark earthy film; it’s a drama played over and over again in front of us in the 9 pm news, these are characters we are acquainted with. Dibakar only presents the logistics behind the lies and the motive behind the machination.

This political drama intertwines the lives of Shalini Sahay (Kalki), dropout from an American university, videographer Joginder Parmar (Emraan) and IAS officer Krishnan, through a single event of the public murder of Dr Ahmedi, an activist opposing a government project to build a ‘progressive’ business park by displacing an entire slum population. Kalki, crazily in love with her ex-professor Ahmedi, takes it upon herself to fight for justice. Events unfold in a way that reveals in sharp-focus our hypocrisy as a society, our moral dilemmas with corruption and our flawed vision of progress.