‘O’Romeo’ review: A same-old yarn about swaggering gangsters and bloody revenge

Vishal Bhardwaj’s latest film draws on a tall tale from Mumbai underworld lore. O’Romeo is based on Sapna Didi, one of the stories in S Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai. The chapter is based on gangland personage Hussain Ustara’s account of Ashraf, who decides to kill no less than Dawood Ibrahim after he orders her husband’s murder.

In Zaidi’s telling, Ustara, having fallen for Ashraf, helps her carry out her revenge. Ashraf, who adopts the name Sapna, gets very close to killing Ibrahim, but is eventually slain by the gangster. This most likely apocryphal story is reproduced without scepticism or irony.

Zaidi writes in all seriousness about Sapna, “She knew the Mumbai underworld like the back of her hand and was creating unprecedented fear in the minds of Dawood’s many henchmen. She had begun to play a big role in busting several gambling dens and dance bars in the city as well.”

Bhardwaj had bought the rights to the story years ago, but before he could proceed, the heavily spiced series Ek Thi Begum came out. Bhardwaj’s eventual film, which he has co-written with Rohan Narula, makes several changes to Sapna Didi, using the source material to deliver an operatic experience of love and carnage.

While set in 1995 and 1996, O’Romeo appears to be taking place once upon a...

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