Movie Review - Lucknow Central by Suhel Johar

Lucknow Central Disappoints With Its Flawed And Contrived Script.

The theme of Lucknow Central has some similarity with Yash Raj Films’ Qaidi Band and follows more or less the pattern of younger generation film which was released three weeks ago.  Qaidi Band exposed the audience to the terrible life of jails. Similarly, Lucknow Central, also deals with life in the prison and what’s more, the crux in both the films is the prisoners forming a band in order to escape from jail. And that wouldn’t have been a grievance at all if the story of Lucknow Central didn’t have so many loopholes.

Ironically, Lucknow Central is said to be inspired by a real life incident. There is actually a band formed by prison inmates in Lucknow that performs at functions. In 2007, the then senior superintendent of the jail, V K Jain, decided to set up a band from Lucknow to participate in the annual event where inmates from different central prisons across Uttar Pradesh came together to showcase their talent. Funds were raised, and 15 instruments were bought. Twelve men sentenced to life imprisonment for murder came together to form a band. The band, which is called Healing Hearts, was formed in the Adarsh Karagar, just on the outskirts of Lucknow.

The band worked hard to give a fantastic performance on Republic Day, and since then, there has been no looking back for them. From private parties to weddings, the band has become popular at all kinds of events. There is a booking counter for the band, and the members head back to jail after every performance, since they are still serving their term.

Coming back to Lucknow Central, the film tells the story of a group of prisoners who get a unique opportunity in escaping from jail. Aspiring singer Kishan Mohan Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar) is framed for the murder of an IAS officer in his hometown Moradabad. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and after 18 months, he is shifted to Lucknow Central jail. He finds out that the IGP (Virendra Saxena) has asked for a band to be formed in Lucknow Central comprising of a group of prisoners. They are to perform at an Independence Day celebration and also compete with band from other prisons of Uttar Pradesh. NGO worker Gayatri Kashyap (Diana Penty) is given the responsibility to form the band. Kishan jumps at this opportunity and signs up for the band. He also succeeds in roping in Victor Chattopadhyay (Deepak Dobriyal), Parminder Singh Gill aka Pali (Gippy Grewal), Purushottam Madan aka Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) and Liyakat Ansari aka Dikkat (Inaam Ul Haq) after facing some resistance. Kishan however is not just trying to fulfil his singing ambition by forming this band. He plans to escape. But the jailor, at Lucknow Central, Raja Shrivastava (Ronit Roy) is tough and not easy to be fooled. He senses about this plan. What happens later on forms the crux of the film.

The beginning portions are fine. But the film defies logic soon enough and that continues right till end. Kishan’s character is badly written and it fails to make you feel any of the emotions that he’s going through in the course of the film. Kishan is very conveniently pronounced a convict in a small comfy court by a judge when the only evidence that the court had was his sketch made by an 8-year-old and a confession from a friend which looked really fake.Also one fails to understand the relevance of Kishan pretending to be mute when he reaches Lucknow Central? Kishan plans to escape from jail and then fulfil his singing dreams. How on earth he'd do that and why didn’t he realize that someone who has escaped from a prison would have to always hide from the cops and that becoming a famous singer is out of option, is incomprehensible! Also certain developments in the film are highly unconvincing. The manner in which Victor ditches Tilakdhaari (Manav Vij) and joins Kishan is difficult to digest. Also how Pandit agrees to join Kishan and why nobody has a plan after escaping from jail is too much. The character of Gayatri is also half baked. It’s amusing to see her getting convinced by Kishan and decides to help him form the band. Ronit Roy plays this strict, menacing jailor who keeps on harping about how Lucknow Central Jail, under him, is so disciplined and hard to break. And yet, he does nothing about the impending jail break that he claims to already know about.

Lucknow Central just doesn’t work. Until the first half, the film is semi gripping with some genuinely thrilling moments. There is prison politics, two parties clashing and a lot more which was beautiful. Although it was supposed to be Farhan’s story, we became more interested in what happens to other fellow inmates (by this time, band mates) of Farhan Akhtar. Second half is almost like the first half, but with a half-heartedly shot escape sequence and a very convenient end. At this point, the writers seemed uninterested in doing any further work.

Ranjit Tiwari’s direction is below par and could have been better with a little more work on the story (Ranjit Tiwari and Aseem Arora) and a more logical script (Aseem Arora). Few scenes are well handled but they all get overshadowed by the many bad scenes. Aseem Arora’s screenplay is not just faulty but riddled with goofs. However e he does a better job as the dialogue writer. Tushar Kanti Ray’s cinematography is neat. Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty’s production design is fine. Charu Shree Roy’s editing is bad. The film is too long at 147 minutes and could have been way shorter. Music by Arjuna Harjai, Rochak Kohli and Tanishk Bagchi is nothing much to talk about. Since the film was almost banking on the spirit of melody so much more was expected from the film’s music that is about a band. Teen Kabootar is interesting as it’s conceptualized well but Kaavaan Kaavaan is the only track that works. The other songs like Meer-E-Kaarwan, Rangdaari and Baaki Rab Pe Chhod De are poor. Arjuna Harjai’s background score is effective.

Performancewise, Farhan Akhtar, who gave us so many memorable performances, surprisingly was not really up to the mark. He has his emotional moments but falters big time in getting the dialect right. His flawed English pronunciation seems a tad artificial and inconsistent. Diana Penty also failed to impress as an NGO worker who solely wants to reform the prisoners. She hardly had anything to do apart from one scene where she shows some real acting. Deepak Dobriyal as always is dependable and gets the Bengali accent right. Rajesh Sharma also proves his worth and performs ably. Gippy Grewal puts in a fine performance and his look is quite interesting. Inaam Ul Haq gets a raw deal and could have done better. Ronit Roy is monotonous and does nothing that he hasn’t done before. His dialogue delivery is superficial and contrived. Manav Vij does justice to his role. In a special appearance, Ravi Kishan as Chief Minister Pawan Singh Chaturvedi delivers an impactful performance and proves to be the best despite the fact that he hardly has much screen time.

On the whole, Lucknow Central is a poor show all the way. You can let go of this film due to the weak script, lack of entertainment value and long run time of the film will work against it.