A bullet or a tablet: what exactly is this Leela ?

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is one of those rare genres of directors who always believed in doing things differently not bothering too much about the masses’ opinion. Whether it was Hum Dil De Chuke, Saawariya or Guzarish, every movie was conceived and treated differently. People were excitedly waiting for Ram leela aka Goliyon ki Rasleela, a movie featuring Deepika Padukone after two back to back successful movies and Ranveer Singh. Shot extensively in Udaipur and Rann of Kutch, the colourful promos of the movie reflected larger than life setup.

Team “Jaipur Beat” yet again took it upon themselves to watch the movie on the very first day and share its review with our audiences. The movie starts off with screen full of chromatically dressed ladies and you are immediately made to realize that you watching a Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie. The movie talks about a town in Gujarat that deals in selling of guns and its people drinking beer on streets where a guy and a girl from two rival, constantly-clashing mob gangs fall for each other while the others are spraying bullets and shedding blood. And yes full marks for guessing that Ranveer (Ram) and Deepika (Leela) belonged to these two communities. The movie starts with a slide stating “inspired by Romeo and Juliet” which in itself is a strong statement.

The two meet at Holi celebration and within minutes fall in love with each other. The lip to lip kiss stamps the official confirmation of their affair. If only rest of the movie was as brisk as their romance. These two decides that the only way their romance can flourish is by putting this enmity to rest. Further story of the movie gets divided into the war and their love story.

Deepika and Ranveer have awesome chemistry to complement frenetic direction of Bhansali and the truly fabulous set pieces. For a change there are lot of double meaning dialogues exchanged and cheesy SMS text by these two. Initially their kisses were seriously giving competition to movies such as Shudh Desi Romance. Ranveer leaves no opportunity to take off his shirt, something director did with Salman Khan too in HDDCS. Deepika looked seriously stunning in typical gujrati ghaghra choli and did justice to the role. Her acting during the later part is delight to watch.

The real star of the movie is Supriya Pathak as a god-fearing matriarchal mob boss with a rascally twinkle that intermittently threatens to turn villainous. From Khichdi to Ramleela is surely a journey for this talented actress. We must say, she should do more movies. Gulshan Deviah, Abhimanyu Singh, Sharad Kelkar have their good moments along with Richa Chadha who was also very powerful in the small role given to her.

The music is composed by Bhansali himself. The hangover of HDDCS in the background track and holi song etc can be easily recognized. The song Bhai Bhai is really interesting but the song that stood out is Laal Ishq.

Bhansali has shot this movie on a grand scale. It looks like one big ‘Bhansalized’ canvas of colourful painting. The sets are huge and at times remind us of Saawariya.

Watch this movie for Bhansali’s dare, for Deepika’s screen presence, for Ranveer attempt to be different and off course for celebrations and festivities India offer. I won’t predict a massive collection like Chennai Express but surely this movie will bring audience to the theatre.

Points : 3.5/5