If you have seen The Shawshank Redemption, you’ll know that James Whitmore’s character, Brooks, couldn’t adjust to life on the outside that made him take his own life. In Lucknow Central, four young men, who although initially plan to escape, change their minds later on. However, what is ever so poignant in The Shawshank Redemption, just doesn’t make sense over here. Lucknow Central is riddled with plot inconsistencies as we see in the Lucknow Central film review.
On the face of it, Lucknow Central‘s premise is simple. After being sentenced to life for a crime he didn’t commit, Kishan Mohan Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar) wants to break free. On being transferred to Lucknow Central Jail, where Gayatri Kashyap (Diana Penty) is assembling a music band for an upcoming competition, Kishan gets a chance to plan a jailbreak. With the help of four other prisoners, they work on how they can get out on the pretext of performing in the competition.
So far so good. However, if you think that you are in for an interesting jailbreak movie, you might be let down. Rooting for Kishan is not going to take you anywhere. The movie has quite something else in store for you. I don’t want to give away too much, but in the second half, as the narrative takes an altogether different route, much of the momentum it is trying to build up until then is frittered away.
I was anticipating the second half to be entertaining as the film was finely poised just before the intermission. However, it loses its way on resuming and turns out to be a rather wimpy affair. As far as the acting is concerned, Farhan Akhtar takes away the top honors with a commendable performance right through the movie. On the sides, Deepak Dobriyal and company put on a decent show. However, with all the flaws in the story, their acting can’t seem to redeem this one.
Diana Penty’s character is the weakest link in the movie. While Lucknow Central tries to portray itself as a jailbreak film, at its heart, it is more of a prison-rehab movie. At the end of the day, as moviegoers, we love seeing movies where the protagonist is triumphant against all the odds. At the least, we expect of a jailbreak movie that the hero devise an ingenious plan to escape from the prison. That is sorely missing from Lucknow Central. While trying to be different, it does itself more harm than good, as it drifts away in a manner that is unlikely to appeal to most filmgoers.
If you fancy movies with a buoyant ending and like to see the protagonist achieve what he sets out to do, Lucknow Central will disappoint you. However, this is a mediocre film, that is at the end of the day watchable mainly due to Farhan Akhtar’s self-assured acting. You can easily wait for this one to come on the cable rather than heading for the theater.
Lucknow Central film review gives Lucknow Central 2 out of 5 stars
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