Bollywood Preview - Direct Dil Se: Zanjeer 2013

Casts: Ram Charan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Prakash Raj
Banner: Reliance Entertainment, Rampage Motion Pictures Ltd, Adai Mehra Productions Pvt Ltd, Flying Turtle Films

Director: Apoorva Lakhia

Producer: Puneet Prakash Mehra, Apoorva Lakhia, Sumeet Prakash Mehra
Writer: Suresh Nair
Music: Chirantan Bhatt, Meet Bros Anjjan, Anand Raj Anand
Release Date: 6^th September 2013

Story line: The thriller tells a tale about Vijay, a tough and honest police officer and his struggle against the system and his inner demons. Vijay is in charge of a case, where Ria, a key witness of a murder denies to co-operate with the cops. The murder is done by an oil mafia Teja and his gang. The movie highlights the battle of Vijay with Teja and also against his parents' cold blooded murderer.

Know more about the captain of the Ship, the director: Before becoming a film director, Apoorva was an assistant director for Ashutosh Gowariker's period epic film Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India. As Aamir Khan was looking for someone with Hollywood experience for Lagaan, Farhan Akhtar recommended Apoorva, who had worked with casts and crews in Hollywood. He also worked as the second assistant director for the film Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996).

He made his debut as a film director with the 2002 film Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost. His second film Ek Ajnabee released in 2005 which starred Amitabh Bachchan in the leading role was a remake of the Hollywood film Man on Fire. His third film Shootout at Lokhandwala which has a multi-star cast released on 25 May 2007 and was based on real-life events involving the underworld gangsters Maya Dolas and Dilip Buwa. In late 2007 he directed a short story titled Sex on the Beach for the anthology film Dus Kahaniyaan. His next film was Mission Istanbul starring Vivek Oberoi, Sunil Shetty, Shriya Saran and Zayed Khan.[4] North American producer Vikas Kohli of Fatlabs studio collaborated with Mika Singh for the first time on the Mission Istaanbul soundtrack.

He has written the story of Hide & Seek (2009), which is directed Shawn Aranha. Lakhia wrote and directed all the movies from his debut to Mission Istanbul. His latest guest appearance was in a negative role in the movie Knock Out starring Sanjay Dutt and Irrfan Khan.

My “Gut Feel” and preview:

Budget of this movie is approx. 49 crore and length of the movie is 2 hours five minutes. Initial Zanjeer in 1973 introduced an angry young man in the form of Amitabh Bachchan. In that era the offered story was fresh and was appreciated by the audience however since then Bollywood cine goer has witnessed several films around the same story line.

I do not have the high hopes from this remake of Zanjeer as whole presentation looks dull and eroded with no ex factor which would create curiosity among the audience. Priyanka would be as usual and same would be the case with Prakash Raj who was again seems to be giving rusty performance as he delivered in Police giri off late.

With repetitive predictable storyline, not so exciting star cast and dull screenplay I would give this movie 2.5 out of 5 stars, five days before the release.