AURANGZEB: TIRESOME TERE MERE APNE

Firstly, the title, Aurangzeb, is misleading.

Any resemblance to the character of Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, is simply non-existent. It appears in the form of very lack lustre dialogue delivery by Rishi Kapoor. .."Aurangzeb ka naam suna hai..Mughal badshaah.."

The rest is one big mish mash of the new and the old. More old.

Gurgaon is the empire here. "Gurgaon,mera gaon. Mera shaher.Mere zakhmon mein chipakta mere baap ka namak." The son narrating this filmy part  is Arya  (Prithviraj Sukumaran) and the father is a disgraced, dead cop,(Anupam Kher).

Arya and his chachaji, a police commissioner, Ravikant (Rishi Kapoor) want to absolve Arya's late father of a wrongly alleged charge. Kher had a history with old enemy, real estate mafia lord, Yashwardhan (Jackie Shroff).Yashwardhan's wife, Tanvi Azmi and her son Vishaal (Arjun Kapoor)are part of the history; best not revealed .

In Yashwardhan's family, Vishaal's look alike, Ajay is the 'kamzor nalayak' who lives on cocaine, beats up his girlfriend,Ritu (Sasha Agha)and resents his father's illicit relationship with Neena (Amrita Singh) and her son.

 In the cop's family, one son, Arya, resents the other. Though, technically Vishal is not Kher's son.

Rishi Kapoor also has a son and a wife (Deepti Naval). But they are additional pawns in the complicated chessboard of family charts.

Written and directed by Atul Sabharwal for Yashraj Films, the long and tiresome introduction is just the backstory. Now comes just the beginning of the story.

 Arya and Chachaji decide to replace the lookalike brother, Ajay  with Vishal as the rat in his own father's household in order to get the necessary information and proof against Yashwardhan's activities. Ajay is kidnapped. Vishal moves into Yashwardhan household.

But Aurangzeb is no 'Don'. Neither is it "The Departed”. It would have been more tolerable if it was.

The headache of a drama begins. A never ending tale of twists and betrayals that sets off with the intention of planting an 'Aurangzeb' in his father's house, turns into  one messy, plot heavy saga of fathers, sons and brothers in arms. Despite a complicated screenplay , it gets resolved rather easily too.

Every character is one dimensional and predictable. Many shades could have been explored in the characters of Vishal-Ajay duplicates as sons who exchange places and loyalties.

Arjun in a double role,is quite good. But it is Prithviraj who  out shadows him with a very confident screen presence and underplayed performance. Debutante Sasha Agha (Salma Agha's daughter)  as the seductive girlfriend is quite refreshing. Despite close ups in bikini and bare skin most of the time, she manages to look and behave a helpless victim in a criminal household. Rishi Kapoor is not as impressive as the villain he was in Agnipath. Amrita Singh is a welcome change but her earlier fiery energy is missing.

Aurangzeb may fascinate those who like drama for the sake of it. Mostly forgettable.