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Director: John Mathew Mathan
Music: Viju Shah
Cast: Ajay Devgun, Shahid Kapur, Bipasha Basu, Amrita Rao and Javed Sheikh
John Mathew Matthan made the cracking thriller Sarfarosh that remains one of the most well researched commercial film that one has seen in the last decade or so. After a hiatus of more than 5 years, John returns with Shikhar, which comes with a bagful of expectations.
Shikhar tackles a social issue of "Green" V/s "Greed". At a base level, it reminds one of Shri 420, Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai, all films about an innocent young man getting sucked into the glitz & glamour of the big metro and forgetting his root values.
Gaurav Gupta aka GG (Ajay Devgun) is a man who started with nothing and now believes only money can fuel his ambitions. Songad, a small picturesque place somewhere in Western Ghats in Maharashtra, seems to be an ideal place for GG to fulfil his dream of GG City (a Las Vegas right here).
Guruji (Javed Sheikh), to the manor born, believes that wealth means nothing if not used for the society. He runs Krishivan, an ashram that strives to protect the environment and the people from GG and his minister friend Patil who are out to usurp the land and convert it into a concrete jungle. Caught in the tussle is Jaidev Vardhan (Shahid Kapur) who, while respecting his father Guruji's philosophy, falls for GG's gilt-edged dreams.
While Guruji hopes that Jai will return to his roots, GG uses glamorous Natasha (Bipasha Basu) to bewitch Jai and exploit the tribals to sell their lands. Madhavi (Amrita Rao) watches helplessly the man she loves being carried away in the world of wine, women and wealth. Which Shikhar will Jai chose to scale in this battle of man versus machine is what the story is all about.
Matthan's intentions are relevant & honourable in today's times. Environmental preservation, climatic conditions going haywire owing to excess of tree cutting, duping tribals into selling land and dumping them in slums in Mumbai are genuine issues. But the narration is far from convincing. The entire film is dominated by GG and he is glamorised to the hilt. Even at the end, the supposedly bad man goes down with grace. Rather than being a story of the rise of Jaydev Vardhan, Shikhar unfolds as a story of the fall of GG.
If you rewind to the other films like Shri 420 & Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, they worked very well because they were unmistakably the stories of good men caught on the wrong foot. But Shikhar gives us a feeling that even the filmmaker was not very sure whether the conniving GG was his protagonist or the innocent Jaydev.
To aggravate the issue, Ajay Devgun comes with a cool performance as usual and towers over everyone in the film. His presence really pales everyone else and makes one believe that its cool to be bad. Javed Sheikh makes a good debut and measures up to the key role of Guruji. Shahid Kapur performs well towards the end of the film. Bipasha Basu gives a decent performance but the character leaves a lot to be desired. Amrita Rao is wasted.
On the whole, Shikhar is a very disappointing fare from John Mathew Mathan whose second film just does not match up to his outstanding debut.
-- Ashutosh Mordekar
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