Raghu Romeo is paisa vasool!

Shilpa Bharatan Iyer | June 17, 2004 08:47 IST


This feel-good film may be short, but it is totally paisa vasool. It has dance bars and babes, hitmen and action, comedy and songs in its fast-paced, 99 minute duration.

Raghu Romeo is the story of a waiter working in a dance bar. Raghu (Vijay Raaz) lives with his mother (Surekha Sikri) in a chawl and leads an otherwise humdrum existence. He comes alive only when watching the serial Dard Ka Rishta, starring his favourite Neetaji (Maria Goretti). He believes the character Neetaji is real and not just a role that she performs.

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Neetaji, like our current crop of television heroines, is purer than snow, more sinned against than sinning, bearing all the injustices heaped on her with a stoic countenance. She is ready to die for her in-laws, spouting typical self-sacrificing bahu dialogues.

Raghu is so obsessed with Neetaji that he even imagines her talking to him from a television set being carried on a scooter in a traffic jam.

One of the girls at the bar, Sweety (Sadiya Siddiqui), has a soft corner for Raghu. Of course, Raghu is very discomfited by her 'forward' approach. To complete the triangle is Mario aka Brother (Saurabh Shukla), a contract killer who is besotted with Sweety. Raghu, however, is unaware of what Brother does for a living.

On Neetaji's birthday, Raghu borrows a Taj Mahal miniature from a shop where his friend works, to gift her. He promises his friend Chandan he will pay its price (Rs 400) later.

Unfortunately, he doesn't get beyond her secretary in the studio.

When Raghu returns to work the next day and asks the bar owner for his dues, the owner refuses to pay Raghu's outstanding four months' wages. Raghu manages to grab Rs 400 from the day's collection. In return, he gets a sound beating and loses his job.

Brother, who is present at the bar through this fracas, is moved by Sweety's tears. He pays off the owner and hires Raghu as his driver.

When someone puts out a contract on Neetaji, Raghu vows to rescue her. But Brother has to kill her, to save his reputation.

Will Raghu save his beloved Neetaji from Brother?

The film moves at a fast and furious pace with loads of humour. The editing is crisp and Saurabh Shukla has done a wonderful job with the dialogues.

Raaz, as Raghu, is superb. He has captured quite well Raghu's discomfort when dealing with women, his innate goodness and simplicity. He can be totally identified with the character.

Sadiya Siddiqui, as the bar dancer, balances her tough, streetsmart act and sensitivity well.

Initially, Maria Goretti's character, as the television star Neetaji spouting self-sacrificing dialogues in the serial, is hard to swallow. But you get over that as the film moves on and realise that Maria has indeed done a competent job.

Raghu Romeo is a well-directed film. Debutant director Rajat Kapoor has managed to capture Mumbai's gritty life on the streets with accuracy. Considering that Kapoor organised his funds through the Internet, he has done a fair job. One hopes his next project is smoother. Here's to seeing more of his films.

CREDITS:
Cast: Vijay Raaz, Sadiya Siddiqui, Saurabh Shukla, Maria Goretti
Director: Rajat Kapoor
Producer: NFDC/Cinematograph
Music: Pritam

Raghu Romeo
Producer: Rajat Kapoor
Director: Rajat Kapoor
Starring: Vijay Raaz, Sadiya Sidiqqui, Saurabh Shukla, Maria Goretti
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Lyrics: Sanjeev Sharma

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Genre: Comedy
Recommended Audience: Parental Guidance
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Released on: June 17, 2004
Approximate Running Time: 100 Minutes Reviewed by: Vijay Venkataramanan
Reviewer's Rating: 9 out of 10
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Cumulative Rating: 8.57 out of 10
Rated by: 7 unique users
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Raghu (Vijay Raaz), a shy, introvert, good-for-nothing dance-bar waiter is insanely obsessed with Neetaji (Maria Goretti). The only problem is, Neetaji is not real. She is a Hindi soap opera character played by Reshma. Thrown out of his job at the bar, Raghu joins Mario (Saurabh Shukla) as his driver. Mario is a contract killer, a piece of information our dear hero obviously does not realize despite being involved in an attempt with him to kill Reshma. When Raghu does realize the problem at hand, he takes it upon as his life’s mission to save Neetaji/Reshma from Mario. And so the laugh riot explodes and India welcomes its film industry’s freshest storyteller – writer/director Rajat Kapoor.

“Raghu Romeo” is a striking comedy because Kapoor stays away from resorting to slapstick clichés. Grounded in reality, he makes us laugh at his characters’ points of view of their circumstances, as opposed to making a laughing stock of the characters themselves. As a result, we are fascinated by the way Raghu thinks and enjoy every bit of the time that we see the world through his eyes. A lesser writer/director would have very calmly portrayed Raghu as a bumbling, imbalanced, fool. But Kapoor’s Raghu is no fool. He has a legitimate reason to justify his viewpoint of each and everything. The only problem is, when it comes to Neetaji, Raghu somehow can’t seem to draw the line between fiction and reality.

That oscillation between fiction and reality is precisely what Vijay Raaz utilizes to strengthen his stellar performance. Immaculately cast, Raaz’s innocent comic timing is right on the money. The scene towards the end where Raghu breaks down watching the finale of Neetaji’s serial will hurl you into splits. Saurabh Shukla, whose cracking dialogues are responsible for most of the laughs, also hits all the right notes through his performance as “Brother” Mario. Sadiya Siddiqui as the bar-dancer in love with Raghu, and Maria Goretti as the spoilt, television celebrity are just perfect.

However, “Raghu Romeo” is certainly not a perfect film. It has its share of flaws such as the sudden emergence of songs that are funny initially, but proceed to decelerate the pace of the narrative. But because of the strength of Kapoor’s material, and the heart that this film has, you cannot help but overlook those flaws. Rajat Kapoor’s direction is as strong as his screenplay. His shot selections put together by editor Suresh Pai are skillfully juxtaposed against each other, veering between the audience’s and Raghu’s viewpoints, subtly accentuating the humor in their situations. Ditto for Rafey Mahmood’s camerawork that cleverly captures the characters’ claustrophobic aura.

“Raghu Romeo” has everything we like to see in a solid comedy. With laughs aplenty, the movie is at heart, a quadrangle love story. The difference in this love story is that its characters are real people in extremely funny situations. It may not be a mainstream film but it entertains more than many mainstream comedies have even come close to doing. It doesn’t try to preach or be satirical. It simply makes you feel and laugh. Don’t wait for the DVD, run with your friends to the nearest theater and laugh it out before this small film is forced to give in to the string of Bollywood biggies arriving in the coming weeks.


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Caught RAGHU ROMEO couple of days ago. I would hardly call it paisa vasool. Its a confused narrative at best. Pretty boring in places. It has a couple of scenes that are incredibly funny and I wish Rajat Kapoor had the brains to infuse that kind of treatment to the rest of the film. Saurabh Shukla's dialogues are again very funny in the above couple of scenes, otherwise they cannot rise above the script.

All in all RR is perhaps worth a watch on DVD maybe. Its peplexing that it received so many rave reviews at festivals and such. I would any day prefer movies such as WAISA BHI HOTA HAI and JHANKAAR BEATS over these.

Where did you catch this movie?

I am visiting Mumbai currently and caught it in a local theater.