POPCORN REVIEWSS

Adapted from the book ‘Mafia Queens Of Mumbai’ by Hussain Zaidi, and written by Rohan Narula and Vishal Bhardwaj, the core issue with O Romeo remains an identity crisis of what it wishes to stand for. The opening act sets the tone of the drama well – the gritty and grainy specs of Mumbai from the 90s thoroughly compliments the broader themes of the gangster world. This remained a period wherein the existence of gangsters in Mumbai was at its peak, even as the writing is quick to address on how the ‘community’ remained divided on religion after a major incident in the country.

And yet in the very next breath, you are acquainted to the elaborate action set-piece set inside a single screen theatre – the style of which feels eerily close to Animal (yes, again). You may argue that the space is wide (instead of a corridor), and masked men make way for bald ones – but the template and the visual language remains similar. If at all, the sequence is playful and that is the major novelty factor – but is that enough? Nevertheless, both these contrasting themes do find a voice going forward too – even as the drama oscillates being varied moods of playfulness and seriousness. As a result, the larger visual theme remains grittiness mixed with massy action set-pieces.

The basic foundation of the drama remains a love story with traces of revenge. But interestingly, the dynamic between Afsha and Ustara doesn’t necessarily ignite a fire in you. A cutaway flashback sequence notwithstanding, you don’t necessarily feel a sense of rage with the outcome of a certain event – an emotional core that seems hollow because the foundation of the character isn’t well established. After a point, the supposed Shakespearean undertones receded, even as the drama increasingly reminded me of the Hindi dud Tashan (2008). If you notice the structure here, it is eerily close to that film that essentially speaks about a revenge angle at its core too. In other words, this felt like a reheated dish straight out of the microwave – or more specifically an old wine in a new bottle.

This is not to say that the proceedings are a complete trainwreck. I was quite invested in the world that was created in the first hour, even as the drama does briefly show traces of the English film Leon The Professional (1994). The dynamic between Afsha and Ustara may not be emotionally strong from a love angle point of view, but the organic buildup towards a revenge plot does work here. This passage also coincides with the transformation of Afsha – from a petite widower who misses her chance at killing an accomplice of Jalal to turning into a killing machine. Afsha in many ways, is the best written character – with the plot designed to paint targets on specifical characters including a cop, a gangster, and a lawyer – all of whom are a part of Jalal’s gang. But in the same breath, the character of the antagonist isn’t necessarily designed to be powerful enough.

At about the halfway mark when you actually get a glimpse of Jalal, the buildup includes his tryst as a matador in Spain – a track parallelly playing out against a ‘hunt’ taking place elsewhere. Again the duality of the moods is in focus here – wherein the hunter hunts the prey at one end of the world, while the tables turn elsewhere. In a scene, you see Jalal repeatedly smacking the skull of a character after a miss on the latter’s side – an indicator on how he remains invincible on every front. But the ease with which his gang is infiltrated remains a mystery, that too by a rookie who still remains an outsider to the world. The same holds true for the finale too, wherein after much of the buildup – the result is tepid!

If I were to keep some logical flaws aside, I still was moderately invested in Ustara’s journey in his quest for Afsha who suddenly disappears. And yet I wondered on how Ustara wasn’t supposed to be the protagonist here, it was Afsha all along. In that sense, the writing does get its POV wrong – something that was increasingly evident in the second hour. Questions like how did Afsha get into the circle of Jalal while posing as an undercover character would have been better answered if the POV had shifted. Sadly that wasn’t the case!

The writing oscillates between being rewarding and frustrating, given how things take a turn. For instance, a major threat is eliminated against the run of play that had me scratching my head on if things were so easy to bump off a person in broad daylight in front of so many people. But then, I still found myself uncannily invested in the character of Ustara who does his bit to protect Afsha from the gang members. In a wonderfully penned scene, you see major characters cross paths in a moving local train that adds a new texture to the proceedings whilst resulting in an unexpected end. And yet, things go south from here.

It is interesting on how the gritty tone of Mumbai – reminiscent of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey (2009), holds fort even when the writing is generic. There is an eerie pull to the world – be it the dusty and narrow bylanes or a small but troublesome neighbourhood that allows the drama to be grounded. And yet, this very pull in the drama goes for an absolute toss when the proceedings shift to Spain. It literally made no sense for the protagonist to be stationed there in the first place, but given the mess that was created in his gang, logic would have told you that he would have flown back here. That wasn’t the case, and it derailed the drama.

There is a ‘Matlab Kuch Bhi’ moment in the second hour that was once a go-to trope for innumerous Hindi films from the 90s. And I literally had my head scratching as to how this was approved in a 2026 film written by Vishal Bhardwaj. It was outlandish, and then some more in the following sequence that was a nod to Tashan and that action set-piece involving the protagonists taking down an army of men. What was even worse was the final face-off wherein the all-too-powerful antagonist is hardly intimidating while being reduced to rubble within minutes. It is strange how a buildup of this event gave a different picture, but the reality remained far too cliched and convenient. Overall, the screenplay is a mixed bag here – a black comedy with Shakespearean undertones transforming into a love story with a dash of revenge only to end up being far too outlandish for its own liking.