The franchise of ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster’ started in 2011 and director Tigmanshu Dhulia was successful in adapting Guru Dutt’s ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Ghulam’. But it all went haywire when Dhulia thought this can turn into a franchise. The second installment went downhill despite the addition of Irrfan Khan and the third is just another pitstop while descending.
‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns’ ended with Saheb (Jimmy Sheirgill) going to prison under the charges of murder. This part starts with Saheb cracking up a plan for his release. He wants to take revenge from his wife Madhavi (Mahie Gill) because she was the one who planned his arrest. On the outer space, Madhavi is a successful MLA taking over the business. Udai (Sanjay Dutt) is half hipster half royal who owns a night club named House Of Lords in London.
Udai is a master in Russian Roulette – a game in which you load a bullet into one chamber of a revolver, spinning the cylinder, and then pulling the trigger while pointing the gun at one’s own head. Saheb gets out of jail and start giving shades to Madhavi because of which, she leaves for a vacation and meets Udai. Using her infamous art of seduction, she gets close to Udai and after a point of time, asks him to play a game of Russian Roulette with Saheb. Where this game will lead to the relations of Saheb, Madhavi and Udai, is what the remaining story is about.
‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3’ fails to land anywhere properly. It starts poor, has a lousy course of run and ends on an appalling note. Never for a scene you feel to be in the film. The story is so badly penned and executed that there’s not a single moment of connection. The dialogues fall flat and despite Jimmy’s outstanding delivery, none of them strike a chord. The rawness of Part One, is missing this time.
“Maine tere liye kya kya nahi kiya? Guitar bajana seekha” says a heartbroken Babloo to Madhavi in the first installment – this innocence, this freedom of blame was used to build the franchise. Over the years, Dhulia has improvised things which have not gone much in the favour of the franchise. Keeping a similar template, Dhulia has finally hit a place where the audience will suffer from Diminishing Marginal Utility.
Jimmy Sheirgill is one such actor who can do amazingly well in any kind of role you throw at him. In 2003, he was seen as a student in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s ‘Haasil’ and since then there haven’t been a single instance in which we have seen him overstepping the line of acting. He has reprised the role of Saheb very well and is most probably the only good thing about the film. Mahie Gill looks hot but fails to bring back the Madhavi we’ve seen in 2011 and 2013. She hams in some scenes and is a victim of a very lazy writing.
Sanjay Dutt, even after portraying the role of a royal, gets stuck with the swag of Baba and that’s where his character fails to impress. He’s shown as an ouster settled in London but without a single trait of belonging to a royal family. Chitrangada Singh and Soha Ali Khan are just fillers and don’t affect the storyline much. Kabir Bedi is an abysmal villain, the one you wish shouldn’t have been a part of the film.
In a really bad film, one always wonders what the worst thing about it could be. In ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3’, everything is black and black as there’s no white. The songs get on your nerves as they, too, are of no relief. Lata Mangeshkar’s classic “Lag Ja Gale” gets ruined, Revant Shergill’s theme of Baba is too loud to like. Amalendu Chaudhary’s cinematography is ordinary exploring the already seen parts of Rajasthan. Even the London portions were just a montage of well-lit buildings and roads.
On the whole, ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3’ is one of those films that you shouldn’t watch even when it gets aired on TV. Poor story, awful execution, annoying songs, nothing never goes right for the film. Don’t even watch it at your own risk!
Rating: 1.5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2PFt1uS780&feature=youtu.be