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Ajay Devgn, who is said to be playing the character of Haji Mastan in the controversial film 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai', denies any direct resemblance to the late Mumbai underworld don but admits that he was a point of reference.

"Haji Mastan is just a reference. Whatever film we do, it's a reflection of society. I am not doing his life story. It's just a reference point. The film is absolutely fiction and every character has its own energy and attitude," Ajay, 41, said in an interview about the film that has been dragged to court.

"Some similarities might emerge. Someone asked me that in the film the character is in love with a heroine, which apparently happened in real life too, and he works in the dock, but Amitabh Bachchan did that too in 'Deewar'".

Haji Mastan's daughter Shamshad Supariwala has filed an additional affidavit in a Mumbai court against Balaji Telefilms, the producers of 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai', demanding that the family be shown the film before its release.

This is not the first time the movie directed by Milan Luthria has faced trouble. Earlier, Haji Mastan's adopted son Sundar Shekhar alias Suleiman Mirza filed a suit for an injunction order against its release, but a city civil court refused.

The court, however, directed the makers of the film to carry a disclaimer that it has no resemblance to the life of Haji Mastan, who died in 1994.

Ajay says it was a report that came out a long time back that landed the film in legal trouble.

"One story came out long back and that became a perception. I don't think anyone of us further has mentioned anywhere that I am playing Haji Mastan," said Ajay.

"When the case is in court I can't comment but am sure they will understand once they see the film," he added.

Ajay can't recollect too many stories of Haji Mastan.

"I must have heard of Haji Mastan in my childhood but can't recollect what exactly. But there was something about Haji Mastan which made people say good things about him too," said Ajay.

The National Award-winning actor insists that his character in 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai' is more similar to Robin Hood, unlike his role in 'Company' (2002) where again he had played a don.

"He is like Robin Hood. He is romantic; he has a sense of humour, which was not there in 'Company'. When so many shades come to a character and when it shows that the person at heart is good, the perception of performance changes," said Ajay.

The underworld saga also stars Kangana Ranaut, Emraan Hashmi and Prachi Desai.

The actor prefers not to connect with his characters too deeply. "When you are playing a character you have to like that character and think from its point of view, otherwise you can't play that character. But I don't connect much with the character.

"If you think a lot about the character, you will go mad and forget which is you in real life. Most people become mad if they keep living the character even after going home. The first thing you should learn is to switch off," he said.

But Ajay did take a long time to come out of the character of Bhagat Singh which he played in 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh' (2002).

"It was not a hangover but there was an admiration for the character of Bhagat Singh. When you are playing a real life character, you have to justify it fully because he is a real life hero. You can't afford to make minor mistakes while doing such characters. So, you have to study a lot.

"When you see that a person can be so selfless, you start feeling. That was the only character that stayed with me for a while," said Ajay.

Indo-Asian News Service

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Kangana Ranaut, Prachi Desai

Directed by: Milan Luthria

It's the way he looks at the camera. Almost as if it doesn't exist. Ajay Devgn as Sultan Mirza is NOT Haji Mastan, please note. He's just this Robin Hood in the 1970s who happened to be a smuggler and who at some point in the taut plot, locks horns with a junior recruit who, please note, is NOT Dawood Ibrahim.

So who, in the name of immoral crime and haphazard policing, are these two men? So stylishly masculine, so sweaty in their realism and so menacing in their demeanour and in complete denial of the existing morality they remind you of the anti-social heroes from Westerns?

'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai' takes us back to the beginnings of gangsterism in Mumbai. Milan Luthria excels in creating smouldering combustive stress between two mean menacing men… Remember Devgn (who back then was Devgan, just as Mumbai was Bombay when the film under review unfolds) and Saif Ali Khan in Luthria's 'Kachche Dhaage' and on a more satirical note, John Abraham and Nana Patekar in 'Taxi No 9211'.

In 'Once Upon A Time….' the conflict between Devgn (who is NOT Haji Mastan) and Emraan Hashmi (who is NOT Dawood) is placed in a far more complex and challenging scenario. The screenplay (Rajat Arora) takes into view the entire gamut of grime in the canvas of crime that cannot be hidden by the surface glamour and glitter.

The vintage cars, the costumes and that attitude of rebellious abandon comes through in the inner and outer styling of the characters. The people in Luthria's panoramic view of Mumbai in the late 1960s and 70s are steeped in a cinematic realism. Neither a part of that period nor a completely true representation of an era gone by the characters hover in a no-man's-land populated by fascinating details of past recreated with a tongue-in-cheek broadness of purpose.

There are bouts of suppressed satire in the way the whole era of the genesis of the underworld is represented. For example Emraan Hashmi befriends and gets intimate with a woman who looks a lot like a Bollywood actress whom Raj Kapoor had introduced in a film and Dawood had befriended and allegedly impregnated.

Often the characters are an amalgamation of furious folklore and long-forgotten newspaper headlines of the 1970s. Kangana Ranaut plays an actress from the 1970s who gets the hots for the Robin Hood-styled smuggler-hero. Later she is discovered to have a congenital heart disease (a la Madhubala who came two decades before the events of this film are supposed to unfold). But look at the irony! It's her smuggler-hero lover who dies of a wounded heart.

Maybe we shouldn't give away the plot. Because the plot never gives itself away. It never betrays a phoney intent of purpose. The narrative unfolds through the first-person narration of a troubled wounded cop, played with remarkably restrained bravado by Randeep Hooda. Indeed this is the most accomplished performance in the film. He's partly a gallant law enforcer and partly a victim of a system that breeds inequality, corruption and finally, self-destruction.

Hooda is wry, cynical, bitter, anguished and yet able to see the humour of a situation that one can ride only by sublimating its gravity. As for Ajay Devgn, he continues to evolve with every performance. As a gangster from the 1970s Devgan brings on the table a clenched self-mocking immorality. He stands outside the character even while internalizing the performance.

Director Milan Luthria imparts a keen eye for details to the storytelling. Some bits in the second-half get shaky, such as the predicable club songs and the repeated use of overlapping editing patterns to convey the rising tension between the mentor and the protégé turned tormenter. But the director's command over the language of outlawry is unquestionable.

Emran Hashmi as Devgn's uncontrollable protégée gets the look and body language right. His courtship of Prachi Desai to the accompaniment of romantic hits from the 1970s (e.g Raj Kapoor's 'Bobby') is engaging.

Understandably, the two ladies are reduced to pursing their lips and wringing their hands as the story progresses. The film's best, most charming and heartwarming moments come in the early stages of the drama between Devgn and Ranaut. Their growing fondness for one another is recorded in scenes and words written by a poet who can see the humour behind mutual attractions.

The real hero of this film is the writing. Rajat Arora's dialogues flow from the storytelling in a smooth flow of poetry and street wisdom. Aseem Mishra's sharply -evocative cinematography gives to this rugged-and-razorsharp look at Mumbai's mythic mating with crime, an urgency that simply can't be ignored.

Indo-Asian News Service

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