Where the Jewel has No Crown

Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta, Kunal Kapoor, Chirjut Singh Kohli, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Payal Nair, Gagan Arora

Direction: Robby Grewal, Kookie Gulati

Short and shot in foreign locales including Istanbul, this presentation by Robby Grewal and Kookie Gulati is a designed thriller where a planned heist is the central plot. It fails to engage even during its short duration. The blame could well lie with the screenplay team of Robby Grewal, Sunit Arora, Sambit Misa and David Logan. Released on the OTT platform, it suffers certain grammatical errors; with an increased populace entering the OTT space, it is necessary for a filmmaker to address the issue as the target audience is accordingly fine-tuned: the grammar of storytelling.

The title is obviously inspired from the 1967 super-hit film ‘Jewel Thief’, one of the folklores of Hindi cinema. The Vijay Anand classic is not only rated among the very best whodunits but also a top-level musical. The Navketans themselves messed up with the haloed film product when Ashok Tyagi got Dev Anand to endorse ‘Return of the Jewel Thief’. ‘Jewel Thief — The Heist Begins’ is nearer the latter than the former.

A few seconds into the narrative, Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat), a painter, is seen murdering someone in the midst of an ‘At Home’. This is to visibly indicate that he is the cold-hearted villain we have to deal with from the precincts of our drawing rooms. On information that ‘Red Sun’, Africa’s most prized jewel, is up for a heist, he recruits a famous thief Rehan Roy (Saif Ali Khan).

For the story to take off and to give the characters some credibility, we have Rehan jogging around international streets, stalked by two erring police officers, including Gaurav Chadda (Chirjut Singh Kohli). They are acting at the behest of the local police officer Vikram (Kunal Kapoor). While the film weakly introduces Rehan with all the time in the world and eye-pleasing locales, he spends no time establishing Vikram as a no-nonsense law-defying police officer. The Rajan-Rehan meet is intended to be clothed in secrecy, in an unknown luxurious villa in Mumbai. It is marked by the gory killing of a rottweiler by its master Rajan. Rajan also makes blackmailing inroads by banking ill-gotten wealth in the dream hospital of Rehan’s dad Jayant Roy (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). The museum curator (Payal Nair) succeeds to effectively safeguard (or so it seems) the Red Sun from the avaricious and criminal eyes of Rehan and Rajan.

After being nearly beaten to pulp, Rehan asks his predator for a smoke and comes up with a Plan B. Also, in the backdrop, we have yet another big-time player eyeing the loot without having to soil his hands in Moosa Bhai (Dorendra Singh). Unhesitatingly, Rajan also conspires to double-cross Rehan and share with old foe-cum-new friend Moosa. Plan B is executed with consummate ease by the reputed Jewel Thief, reminiscent of multiple films. Like ‘Jugnu’ and the ‘Dhoom’ series. Only, this time, it is straight on your face, oversimplified and in your very own drawing rooms.

Jaideep Ahlawat as the villain tries hard to emulate Ajit of the ’70s. Nearly succeeds. Talent like Kulbhushan Kharbanda is wasted. While it is redeeming to see Kunal Kapoor do an extended role, there is little he does (or the film offers) for redemption. Nikita Dutta as Farha has a role which is half-moll, half-girlfriend who ends up being a stylised bartender at best. Suave and stylised. Saif walks away with the few accolades that the film can garner.

Treasure your time like a precious jewel and do not allow this heist to hit your drawing room.