The 1990s in Mumbai were no ordinary years. Bollywood coloured the city’s imagination, and the underworld often called the shots. The two did not merely coexist, but were entangled, glamour and gunpowder sharing the same scene. That is the world ‘O’Romeo’, Vishal Bhardwaj’s latest, drops us into. The film opens with Shahid Kapoor’s Romeo, known as Ustara, storming a cinema hall on a killing spree as Madhuri Dixit writhes across the screen to the tune of ‘Dhak Dhak’.
Ustara was once an aide to the dreaded don Jamal (Avinash Tiwary). But their equation sours, and he’s largely restricted to the sea, only stepping on the land to execute hit jobs for Intelligence Bureau officer Ismail (Nana Patekar).
Ustara kills a lot, drinks a lot, and sleeps with a lot of women. He’s hardened, as if in a bid to fight his demons. Yet when Afsha (Triptii Dimri) – gorgeous, grieving and quietly resolute – steps on his boat, something shifts. The blade-wielding Ustara softens.
Afsha has come to place a contract to kill none other than Jamal, the city’s most feared don, and the man who killed her husband, Mehboob (Vikrant Massey). Ustara hesitates; this is not an ordinary hit.
But Afsha’s quiet resolve softens him, and soon, he falls deeply for her. This is no longer just a hit job, but a mission that stretches beyond that, across countries and continents, and fuelled as much by love as by blood.
‘O’Romeo’ is delicious on paper: 1990s Mumbai, the underworld, gangsters, vengeance, love and gore — themes we have seen before, yet ones that Vishal Bhardwaj approaches with freshness and some depth.
However, it stretches only this far. Kapoor is terrific as Ustara, but the film never quite interrogates the ‘why’ behind the intensity of his love for Afsha. His leap from a bloodthirsty assassin to besotted “Romeo” feels abrupt, and the transformation, though passionately performed, doesn’t fully land.
The film’s biggest let-down, however, is Jamal, not in how Tiwary plays him, but in how he is written. On paper, he is monstrous: a larger-than-life don who slits the throat of the wife he loves to death, and parades her severed head in public after he learns she killed his brother. The script grants him spectacle, yet he never quite evokes dread. For all the brutality attributed to him, Jamal feels curiously weightless, more paper tiger than kingpin.
‘O’Romeo’ boasts a formidable supporting cast, Nana Patekar, Farida Jalal, Tamanaah Bhatia and Aruna Irani, yet most are reduced to fleeting appearances. Only Patekar truly registers, keeping you on edge even as he cracks you up in moments of humour.
As Ustara, Kapoor goes all in yet remains controlled, delivering a performance that anchors the film. Dimri is excellent, bringing quiet intensity to Afsha, Avinash Tiwary does justice to whatever he’s offered. Ultimately, this is a Shahid Kapoor film, not essentially a must-watch, but worth a watch for the performances alone.
