REVIEW: Rajeev Khandelwal's Aamir

Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal

It has no pretty faces, no foreign locations and definitely no sprawling sets. Well, it was after all no Yash Raj movie. It's a movie about this one man Aamir Ali and Mumbai.

Dr Aamir Ali comes back home to Mumbai, India from London. His spirits are dampened when his family fails to turn up to receive him at the airport. Visibly unhappy, Aamir (Rajeev Khandelwal) tries to call up home from a nearby PCO. Two men on a bicycle come towards him and they toss him a cellphone. The phone immediately starts ringing…

You will almost think it's a Colin Farrell starrer Phonebooth remake. But it isn't. While Phonebooth was more about this one guy and his circumstances, Aamir is about the city Mumbai and the unwelcome surprises that it can throw up to just about anybody.

The movie starts with a collage of the city. Shot in a refreshing way, the camera gives a new angle to the city of Mumbai.

What's interesting is, though the movie opens with the known stereotype representation of Mumbai, capturing the stately structure of the Victoria Terminus and things like that, the movie itself is not shot anywhere there.

The movie is shot in the narrow lanes and bylanes of Mumbai where some of us have never been and given a chance, will never be in the future either. It brings forth the side of Mumbai which we would rather not know. And we are not talking of the dance bars and red light areas. Those we've seen in many movies – Chandni Bar, Pranali etc etc. This movie takes us to real locations in the heart of Mumbai which stays covered in muck, dirt and lots of crime.

This movie traces the occurrences in the life of Dr Aamir Ali in a single day of his life. We could almost call it a picaresque plot or story except for that it isn't. Though it could have been. Aamir could have been the picaro protagonist who goes along learning things from his surroundings. Probably he did but it was definitely not depicted anywhere in the movie.