Review: 'Maximum' a let down

Film: Maximum
Director: Kabeer Kaushik
Cast: Sonu Sood, Neha Dhupia, Naseeruddin Shah, Vinay Pathak
Rating: *1/2

With a film like Maximum, you go in with your hopes pegged on one person, and one person only, Naseeruddin Shah. You settle down to watch the film with fingers, arms and legs crossed hoping to have a decent time. However, Maximum proves to be a film so unsalvagable that even an actor like Shah fails to help its case. 

Director Kabeer Kaushik had tried his luck earlier with a film based on similar lines titled Sehar, which failed to make an impression and sadly such is to be the fate of Maximum.

It starts with a dramatic shot of a blood soaked Sonu Sood running alongside a train in slow motion. It is only fair that the reader should know that 90% of the film is just this: shots of Sonu Sood running, walking, taking off his sunglasses, putting on his sunglasses, shooting, and other very ‘masculine’ activities like seducing women (most of these in slow motion and with dramatic music). He is the quintessential rough and tough man, we get it.

Sood plays Pratap Pandit, an encounter specialist and a top cop of 2003 Mumbai when the city was waging a war against the underworld. His arch rival Arun Inaamdar, another encounter cop (Shah) is out to bring Pandit down. So what it all comes down to is that two top cops fighting for ‘maximum’ power over a period of five years (basically a very, very long time).

The plot… well there isn’t one. But if I had to describe it, the word ‘random’ would fit pretty well. 

Shah’s character is probably the one that has been given least importance and hardly any screen time, and considering the film is partly about him, it’s quite ridiculous. He is hardly there and when he is, his dialogues are annoyingly cheesy.

Sood’s character is conflicted. Is he good? Is he bad? Is he a family man? What he comes across as is a cop who likes to have fun with guns and thinks it is okay to go and sleep with other women as long as he takes care of his wife and kids too. It’s fine to have shades of grey but if the main character is portrayed as a jerk, it’s a little hard to feel sorry when bad things happen to him. His performance however, quite decent.

Neha Dhupia’s character Supriya Pandit is, in her own words, the perfect ‘Hindustani aurat’ who is singularly devoted to making her husband’s life easier. Irritating description of self aside, Dhupia has acted quite well and looks beautiful in the traditional Indian avatar.

The script fails on many levels and the film seems longer than its 150-minute duration. The events, after a point, make no sense and become hard to follow because you are just too damn bored to care anymore.

And, of course, there is an item number 'Aa ante amalapuram' that you need to look out for, like how you would look out for a speeding truck or a cloaked figure with a hook for a hand.

Do not waste your time and money on this one.