Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3 review: Drunk royals sink their kingdom and franchise | Bollywood - Hindustan Times
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Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3 review: Drunk royals sink their kingdom and franchise

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Sep 15, 2018 05:49 PM IST

In Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3, Sanjay Dutt tries to revive his famous ‘swag’, but fails miserably. Here’s our movie review.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3
Cast:
Sanjay Dutt, Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill
Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia
Rating: 1/5

Sanjay Dutt in a still from Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3.
Sanjay Dutt in a still from Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3.

 

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Russian roulette and a Sanjay Dutt behind the trigger are the only additions to the Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster franchise. They both appear rusty and out of practice.

Director Tigmanshu Dhulia’s new film, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3, tries to be a political thriller, but fails to look any different from a cringe-worthy television soap where everybody is plotting against everybody. It’s a total waste of actors, resources and the audience’s time. It teaches patience though. You simply surrender yourself after the first few minutes. Here on, it’s all about bizarre plot twists, painful song sequences and drunk royals. In the end, you emerge a better person with new-found resilience.

Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy Shergill) and his wife Madhavi (Mahie Gill) are still playing games with each other. Aditya, who was jailed in the previous film, has returned and is trying to reclaim his political legacy. After some twists and turns, he meets a London-returned Rajasthan prince Uday Pratap Singh (Sanjay Dutt), and that begins a chain of accidents.

To be fair, Sanjay Dutt’s inclusion in the cast makes the series bigger but it also snatches the focus from its old characters. Jimmy Shergill, among the most capable actors in first two films, gets a chance to redeem himself only in the second half. The damage is irrevocable though. Mahie Gill’s conniving queen act is absurd beyond comprehension.In her defence, she swirls, screams and spills her drink more fluently than before but there is no method in this madness anymore.

Blaring speakers announce Baba’s return but the effect doesn’t last long. Sanjay’s ‘swag’ dies before the gunslinger he is battling with. Then there are characters without much of an explanation. Kabir Bedi and Deepak Tijori’s characters are so thin and so loudly performed that one may wonder whether Tigmanshu was under pressure to finish the shooting in just one go.

What started as a story of dejected princes with uncontrollable urge to rule has transformed into a strange tale of psychopaths running down each other. Tigmanshu no longer controls this world of ghostly estates and treacherous relatives. The original story still functions as the reference point but it has been pared down to the bones.

The dialogues in Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3 are expected to bring out the gritty side of the actors but they do exactly the opposite. They are forced, not in tandem with their surrounding and tonally different from the film. It’s a forgettable world that can’t boast of even one memorable scene.

The complexity of the relationship between Jimmy and Mahie is not a point of concern for the writers. They have assumed that the audience already knows it after the past films. That leaves the two actors grasping for straws. Actually, whatever worked in the previous films is absent here and add-ons are totally out of sync.

The royals of Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster 3 patronise obscure traditions and look more ancient than a ‘70s film. It offers nothing other than a niggling ache. It’s certainly a question mark on Tigmanshu’s otherwise satisfactory filmography.

Interact with Rohit Vats at twitter/@nawabjha

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Rohit Vats is a film journalist who loves to read in between the lines. He can spend hours watching films and cricket matches. Also a script consultant.

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