Shor In The City

When the city pushes to your wits end, do you turn tail give up on your dreams? Or do you push back to claim your share? This is essentially what “Shor…” is all about with dreams colliding, shattering and reforming. The much-abused spirit of Mumbai is on display once more, only this time you don’t get Shobha De in her Satyapaul saris holding a candle, but three protagonists hanging on to their lives by the coat tails – pretty much survivor only minus those gals in bikini – oh wait there’s Preeti Desai. Yeah but she’s not wearing a bikini. Dammit.

Enough of the gravy, so here’s the meat.

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Abhay (Sendhil Ramamurthy) comes to Mumbai as an NRI trying to start a business where he soon comes to terms with the fact that it’s a city of the underworld, a bunch of other sundry’s and the locals. There is your typical underdog – a boy with the talent to make it into the Junior Cricket Team but without the money to buy a ticket.

And then there is Tilak (Tussar Kapoor) making an honest living out of bootlegging – and he’s not just any bootlegger he’s the ethical sort till he chances across some rare loot on a local that throws his happy bubble into free fall.

Abhay meanwhile meets the winsome lass Shalmili (Preeti Desai) who makes him discover the city through her eyes. But will this salvage things for Abhay? Will Preeti and Abhay make out? Yeah well they do (turn to Filter Man, Sendhil himself gives you the feedback).

Mumbai is harsh, it is inhospitable and it will rip you to shreds. Mumbai is not the setting but a part of the narrative itself (thankfully though, unlike Mumbai cutting this one does not rip off Paris Je T’aime).

Why should you watch it? Black humour. Interconnected stories with a big bad city as the backdrop bring movies like Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi and Yuva to mind. So if anything we can expect “Shor…” to another relentless juggernaut with a taut storyline. The fact that’s its supposed to be a black-comedy may work in its favor, but it’s not your usual run of the mill stuff.

Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes, Covert Affairs) last seen in Gurinder Chaddha’s debacle ‘It’s a Wonderful Afterlife’ makes a re-entry, it marks the arrival of former Miss Britain Prachi Desai (she’s maybe could be possibly engaged to Abhay Deol and looks like a dream in a bikini if it helps) plus stars Tusshar Kapoor in a speaking role after quite a while. There is of course the trifle fact that it received rave reviews at the leading film festivals in New York, Pusan and Dubai.

Shor in the City is out on 28th April.

From the April 2011 issue of FHM India.