Some films from the beginning tell you that they are not worth watching, and they turn out to be awesome, then there are some who promise to be amazing — you do anything to catch the first show — but you leave the theatre hall disappointed, trying to make sense how did it happen. You feel betrayed and keep asking yourself the question how could they do it to you? I felt betrayed after watching Allah Ke Banday.
Unlike the promos, which promised the film to be in line with one of the few offbeat “wow” movies that Indian cinema has been lately producing, Allah Ke Banday shows how some filmmakers just can’t get rid of the formula plots: Brotherly love, the guru-shishya drama and, yes, a wife who feels her husband is the greatest man in the world. Come on folks! Shou-ldn’t you leave all that mindless drama behind and get to the point?
The two hours and 20 minutes inside the theatre seemed like an ordeal. Firstly, the young Yakub’s inability to get into a slum kid’s character, his fake walks and talks were all nauseating. The only reprise came in the form of young Vijay, whose acting seemed more real than any of the child actors featured in the films (and yes I’m talking about those who had to fall down after being hit by a bullet).
The story is about a slum called Bhul Bhullaiya, which is the centre of crime and all illegal businesses. Two young slum kids, Yakub and Vijay, enter the world of crime to earn money and get their ailing mother treated in a good hospital. They loot a jewellery store with the support of Bhul Bhullaiya’s top boss, but things don’t end well with the boss trying to take all the loot. The kids injure the boss and flee, but the police soon arrests them and sends them to juvenile home.
The juvenile home, which is another centre of crime and drugs, is run by a corrupt warden (Naseeruddin Shah), who sees the entry of the two kids as a threat to the power structure in the centre. He appoints one of his kids to teach Yakub and Vijay a lesson, who sexually abuse the two children. The two pledge to take revenge and murder the abuser. But just when Naseeruddin Shah’s character of a corrupt warden was adding some life to the film in the first half, his sudden exit (thanks to very active authorities who fire him after the murder) leaves you disappointed.
Faruk Kabir and Sharman Joshi play the elder Yakub and Vijay, resepectively. Once let out of the juvenile centre, they come back to Bhul Bhullaiya to claim their place in its world of crime. They form their own gang of children. But this time they have to face a right-doer, Atul Kulkarni, who runs a school to give the slum children in Bhul Bhullaiya a way to get out of the world of crime.
The story moves on like it does in City of God. The gang of children starts controlling the business. But the similarities end here as the children and Yakub meet a very dismal end and Vijay flees the country to settle abroad with his love interest (Anjana Sukhani).
Naseer appears in the second half as a poor wretched old man waiting for death.
Allah ke Banday seems to be suffering from a general attitude of dropping characters right when they start appealing to the viewers (be it the child gangsters or the Bhul Bhullaiya’s top bosses). The film also tries taking on too many issues: be it the darker side of the juvenile centres, or how children from poor families take to crime instead of studies.