‘Baazaar’ Movie Review: A gripping thriller about greed, power and manipulation

Directed By: Gauravv K. Chawla
Produced By: Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, Emmay Entertainment, KYTA Productions
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Chitrangada Singh, Radhika Apte
Duration: 2 hours 17 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 3/5

While ‘Baazaar’ has its fair share of loopholes, it does what gripping thrillers are supposed to do. It sucks you into its world and keeps you on the edge of your seat. It’s not every day that we see a Bollywood film themed around a stock market and this is a film which will not disappoint professionals from Dalal Street.

In the first half, Rizwan Ahmed (Rohan Mehra) and Shakun Kothari’s (Saif Ali Khan) stories run parallel to each other. While Rizwan is a young man from Allahabad who wants to make it big in Mumbai, Shakun is an old and wily business tycoon who knows every dirty trick in the book when it comes to making money by trading stocks. Their lives intersect just before the interval, and you’ll have to watch the movie to find out what happens from thereon.

Saif is in prime form, and a lot of credit should go to the person who decided his look. The moustache fits his personality to the T and makes him look menacing enough to be a stock market maven. Rohan Mehra could have done better, but he does not drag the film down either.

Coming to its flaws, Shakun Kothari is shown as a man without a weakness. So much so that it is a little hard to digest. You can understand if Salman Khan beats up 20 bad guys single-handedly, but an otherwise realistic character being so domineering is something that did not go down well with this writer. It would have been nice if they had shown him fail a little more.

Also, if you are looking to watch this movie as a guide to making it big in the stock market, you’ll be disappointed. Things seem far too easy for the protagonists. While the real world is like a roller coaster, these people’s lives are like a rocket – one that just keeps zooming skywards.

Final Verdict:

It’s not a bad investment of your time, and you might even change your opinion about Saif Ali Khan (which was formed after watching films like ‘Happy Ending’ and ‘Chef’).

Watch the trailer here: