"Cash in the front of me/Cash in the back of me/Money money on my mind/Making money all the time:" Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani's driving, hip-hop influenced tiltle song sets the tone for this deeply stupid but hugely stylish Indian caper film in which a cross-section of police and thieves try to get their hands on a legendary diamond.
Slightly nerdy DJ (Zayed Kahn) strikes up an acquaintance with a pretty young woman aboard a flight to Italy and tells her a fabulous story that begins in 1836, when a poor peasant uncovers a stupendous, 200-carat diamond. The stone is eventually cut into three smaller gens that pass through many hands, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. Two of the three stones eventually wound up in a Belgian bank and were stolen; the third surfaced recently in Cape Town, South Africa, and was promptly acquired by the Chinese Mafia. Security specialist Shania (Shamita Shetty, younger sister of beleagured star Shilpa Shetty, who survived both a racially-charged stint on the UK Celebrity Big Brother and a controversial public kiss with Richard Gere) has been charged with recovering the gem; she and her team plan to make the hot rock so hot that the only buyer willing to purchase it will be the fictitious "Hafeez," played by Shania herself and bankrolled to the tune of $4 million by the Indian government. What Shania doesn't know is that embittered crook Adgan (action star Sunil Shetty), fresh off a five-year jail term courtesy of a bad old white gangster nicknamed "Uncle," is determined to steal the gem and use it to wreak his vengeance. Adgan renews his aquaintance with old partner/girlfriend Aditi (Dia Mirza), who in turn recruits veteran thief Doc (Ajay Devgan) for the job. Doc calls in specialists Lucky and Danny (Ritesh Deshmukh, Khan ), the hitch being that the former best friends now hate each other. Doc must make sure they don't realize they're working on the same job, to which end he brings in Pooja (Esha Deol), the top-notch getaway driver with whom both men were once in love -- she's charged with keeping them apart. The biggest complication of all is that Doc is Shania's boyfriend, though she knows him only as mild-mannered writer "Karan." Under no circumstances does Doc want to involve Shania in the theft or have her discover his secret identity. And then the double crossing begins…
Director Anubhav Sinha's glossy heist picture, dedicated to the proposition that no matter where you are, it's all about the benjamins, makes little sense but features energetic stunts, some pretty sexy musical numbers and intermittent animated sequences in which the various characters suddenly become oddly-Caucasian cartoon versions of themselves. Dumb though it may be, it's never dull. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
