Daddy
Cast : Arjun Rampal, Farhan Akhtar, Aishwarya Rajesh, Rajesh Shringarpure, Anand ingale, Nishikant Kamat
Rated : 4/10
The son of an unemployed working class middle man goes onto becoming Mumbai’s most dreaded gangster, builds an empire, goes into politics and then prison. In real life, Gawli is housed in Taloja Jail and reports say that this man is so paranoid of being killed in an encounter that when his cell is being cleaned he stands with his back to the wall. He also has a six-member team who guards him.
Back to Arjun Rampal as Arun Gawli. The good. He has the look pat down. His performance in parts is commendable. This is where it all ends.
Director Ashim Ahluwalia’s Daddy tries to somewhat glorify and justify what Gawli did through the words of his mother — that her son’s only crime was that he was born in a poor family. Now if that were true, almost all poor people in India would turn criminals.
Any dialogue to this effect has no place for justification. After all Gawli was not a child. He was old enough to realise what his actions will entail. The mistake, we make, as a society is that we blame the State for everything that ails us. Easy to blame the others rather than take responsibility of one’s actions. If roads are not cleaned, it is the Government’s fault. Do we even think while we thrown out fruit peels and empty wrappers out of moving carsIJ
And even the system was at fault, it doesn’t justify that one becomes a criminal. One can’t glorify a criminal, make him out to be the hero (even if Arjun Rampal is hero material) whatever the circumstances and that is what Daddy does which is not acceptable.
As for performance, Farhan Akhtar as Bhai, is good. Good because despite his presence in the movie, nowhere does he overshadow Gawli’s character.
A movie that had a lot of potential was wasted.