Operation Romeo Review: Impressive!

Operation Romeo

Producer: Neeraj Pandey

Director: Shashant Shah

Cast: Sidhanth Gupta, Vedika Pinto, Bhumika Chawla, Sharad Kelkar, Kishore Kadam and Navni Parihar

Platform of Release: Theatrical

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

The plot of this film which is actually official remake of the Malayalam film, ‘Ishq Not A Love Story ‘ basically revolves around Aditya Sharma (Sidhanth Gupta) and Neha Kasliwal (Vedika Pinto) who are in a relationship which finds itself challenged one night when they’re out on a date to celebrate her birthday but get harassed in the dead of the night by two men who pose as policemen. The film is all about how the night changes the course of their relationship.

Just as the young couple romantically cozy-up with each other, two men, Mangesh and Kiran (Sharad Kelkar and Kishor Kadam), posing as policemen, start harassing them when they are about to indulge in a bit of harmless kissing in a public parking lot. How Aditya decides to take up the task of finding out how the two corrupt guys, one a driver in the hospital and the other a bangle seller forms the rest of the gripping and interesting narrative.

Though at times the pace of the film slackens heavily, the film uses a strained boy-girl relationship to talk about chauvinism, moral policing and difficult choices that one has to make in life and makes for an interesting watch, thanks to the excellent performances by most of the actors in it. While Sidhanth Gupta stands out with his varied portrayal of the character with effortless ease and literally gets into the skin of his character which has different nuances, Vedika Pinto impresses though she has lesser screen time in comparison to Sidhanth.

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Sharad Kelkar is definitely the scene stealer though he appears in a negative role but the way he manages to display different flavours of his characters deserves kudos. While Kishore Kadam is barely average in his role as the sidekick to Mangesh, it is definitely Bhumika Chawla who stands out in her character of the Maharashtrian housewife of Mangesh who has to pay a price for her husband’s crime. Unfortunately a damn good actress like Navni Parihar has been grossly wasted in a role which does not at all measure up at all to her capability and potential.

To sum up, this one’s a thriller-love story that could have been remade smartly and sharply to drive home an important message that though the government has laws governing public safety, they are grossly often misused by some corrupt elements, who quite often take the law unduly in their own hands, and amass wealth by scaring the honest people excessively.