/> Starring Vinod Khanna, Randeep Hooda, Zakir Hussain, Yashpal Sharma, Seema Biswas,Tanushree Dutta
Written & Directed by Vishram Sawant
Rating: * ½

Randeep Hooda's scowl steels the show. And I do mean steel. There's a bedrock of hardened cynicism in the way Hooda portrays the 'encounter specialist' Suryakant Satam who outwardly seems so stoic, you wonder if he feels anything beyond the shrill call of duty.

But....knock knock! ....Underneath the imperturbable exterior is a heart that beats, bleeds and even bleats.

"Can I give you a hug?" after a gruesome encounter he tells his girlfriend, an inderminate shadowy figure who heaves her bosom and makes endless cups of coffee for the man in her life.

If you've seen Jaya Bhaduri in Zanjeer and Parveen Babi in Deewaar, you'd know what the woman in the angry young man's life is meant to do. And be.

Dutta doesn't do it too well. The glamour she's supposed to bring into this ruthless film about an ongoing flow of scummy blood on the unforgiving streets of Mumbai and Bangkok simply gets washed away in the flow of clichés, albeit authentic clichés but done to hammering death nevertheless.

There's a whole battalion of baddies in this poor show of muscle power, all played by actors borrowed from Ram Gopal Verma's factory. They indulge in the most horrific violence with stomach-churning nonchalance. All in a daze work.

Could we please send them to a forwarding address, preferably to a place where no one can bring them back?

The question one would like to ask director Vishram Sawant is, who wants to watch another cops-and-gangster film after Verma has done it to ruinous death in films as far-ranging as Ab Tak Chappan and Shiva? Who cares if the law-enforcing hero is an idealist beyond any rationale? Who care if he gets suspended because he does his job too well?

We've seen every actor from Amitabh Bachchan to Manoj Bajpai to, ahem ahem, Mohit Ahlawat go through the grueling ordeal by idealism. There're too many gangsters, politicians and other undesirables, including the impregnable Seema Biswas as a smooth-talking don-politician with visibly saffron leanings.

There's nothing to be said about yet another grisly homage to gangsterism. Except Hooda who puts in a finely-tuned bridled performance.

It's good to see Vinod Khanna return from exile. As the chief antagonist his wizened features exude an inner strength in spite of an under-written part. Wish there was more of him and less of the scummy brigade with torn off limbs and ripped-open morals.

We know the world has gone to the dogs. But cinema about street violence needs to have more bite than this barking babel on high-profile goondaism with a background score by Sandesh Shandilya that sounds like a clutter of calamitous elements strewn into a sense of impending catastrophe. Mahesh Muthuswamy's camera tries to pick out interesting elements in this simmering claudron of clichés.

Watch this goon-gaan only for Randeep Hooda's clenched performance.