Masand: 'Crook' is colossally disappointing

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Neha Sharma, Arjun Bajwa

Director: Mohit Suri

With “Crook”, director Mohit Suri raises the issue of racism against Indians in Australia, but reduces that globally relevant concern to an amateurish vendetta story.

The film stars Emran Hashmi as a petty movie pirate who immigrates illegally to Melbourne, and falls for an earnest radio jockey.

The film stars Emran Hashmi as a petty movie pirate who immigrates illegally to Melbourne, and falls for an earnest radio jockey (played by newcomer Neha Sharma). Her brother (played by Arjan Bajwa) is a nostril-flaring angry man who repeatedly mutters puerile dialogue about holding on to his culture, and who picks fights with the local goras.

Admirably the film doesn’t take sides, and illustrates how the ‘victims’ of racism are guilty of practicing racism themselves. But “Crook” doesn’t have the skill or the scale to address the issue on a serious level. The plot degenerates into a predictable revenge fantasy, in which the trigger for these racial clashes is an aborted romance. Clumsily scripted, the film focuses more on romance and comedy than the issue it claims to address.

The second half in particular is a mangled mess that climaxes in an unintentionally comical scenario involving an Australian stripper bound to an abortion table in an abandoned warehouse, preparing to be killed by a vengeance-seeking Indian.

Colossally disappointing even going by the modest standards of director Mohit Suri’s previous films, “Crook” has neither the slickness of “Zeher” nor the sensitivity of “Woh Lamhe”. It’s just badly written, badly acted, and badly directed. I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Mohit Suri’s “Crook”. Surely you have better things to do than watch this film!

Rating: 1.5 / 5

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