Moviewatch: Shootout at Zzzz...

Rakhi Sawant has a great cameo in Shootout at Lokhandwala. That she is the lead-in to my bit on the movie should be revealing: this is a sprawling film that needed refinement, not as many B-grade stars as possible. While the trailer led me to expect a sort of Panic Room-with-terrorists, this two-hour excursion is more interested in a history of the Anti-Terror Squad, as headed ironically by Sanjay Dutt. Vivek Oberoi is Maya-aa, an underworld star on the ascendant in a competent Company-hackjob script. Shootout is at its best when it does the old kill-and-spill numbers; it is unwieldy when it tries to give its characters quirks; it is unbearable when Amitabh Bachchan is on the screen, and falls apart completely whenever a song is launched into. Diya Mirza's role needed more writing, Neha Dhupia's needed less, and Amrita Singh returns from her washed-out existence to give the ensemble appreciated street-cred.