Produced by Moserbaer and Seven Entertainment Limited, and directed by Pankaj Advani, Sankat City, is a wild roller coaster romp through the underbelly of a teeming metropolis, featuring an assortment of zany characters – a car thief, a con woman, gangster, film producer, builder, mechanic, prostitute, hit man, cabbie, actor, his duplicate etc. Desperate men and women shadow boxing with the vagaries of chance and fate. Their madcap antics result in their lives getting inextricably entwined with each other, leading to madness and mayhem. Sankat City movie review…
Money, murder, revenge, greed, fear, deceit, not to mention fun-n-frolic and last but not the least, romance, form the ingredients of this pacy, masala comic thriller.
Guru (KK Menon) is a smalltime car thief. Ganpat, who owns a dilapidated garage, is his partner-in-crime. Guru whacks cars and Ganpat (Dilip Prabhawalkar) gives them a make-over in order to sell them for tidy profits.
One night, while returning to his kholi (room), Guru chances upon a swank Mercedes parked outside a brothel, unattended. He steals the car and takes it to Ganpat. While working on the car they discover a sum of 1 crore Rupees in the boot. They are delirious with joy at the unexpected turn of events and start spinning dreams. Little do they know what lays in store – for the car and the money belongs to a vicious gangster/loan shark called Faujdaar (Anupam Kher)!
Guru’s plans ricochet when he tries to sell the stolen Mercedes to Suleman Supari (Rahul Dev), a hitman, who recognizes the car and notifies his friend Faujdaar. Scared for his life, Guru squeals that the moolah is in Ganpat’s garage. Faujdaar sends his henchman with Guru to retrieve the cash.
Unknown to them, the paranoid Ganpat has hidden the money in what he thinks is a safe place in his garage, because he’s afraid that thieves might rob him off the cash. By the time henchman Lovely and Guru reach the garage, Ganpat is involved in an accident, which results in a temporary loss of memory!
Guru can’t find the money anywhere and he has no clue where the amnesic Ganpat has hidden it. A vengeful Faujdaar decides to bump off Guru, who pleads for his life and begs for a chance. The sadistic Faujdaar gives him a grace period of 3 days to cough up the dough.
With no hope in sight, a dejected Guru almost resigns himself to death, when he bumps into Mona (Rimi Sen), a con woman who had teamed up with him in a smalltime con job a few years back. The heist had been a success, but Mona had vamoosed with all the money, leaving Guru in a lurch. She’s right now in the process of putting a sting on a builder, Pachisia (Yashpal Sharma), for which, she requires a partner. Since Guru needs the dough quick, he hesitantly teams up with Mona.
Mona and Guru successfully con a large sum of money off the builder only to lose it again to a strange quirk of fate. The story then weaves itself to a thrilling climax, going through a series of hilarious events, comic situations and nerve wracking moments.
There are also thrills and spills in Sankat City with other characters including Chunkey Pandey in a double role as Sikandar Khan the actor and his body double, Manoj Pahwa as the director and Sanjay Mishra as his assistant, Hemant Tiwari as Philip Fattoo, Virendra Singh as Faujdar’s guru among others, each bringing in his own dose of laughter.
Will Guru be able to return the money to Faujdaar, who is a great stickler for time? Will Mona get the better of Guru yet again? Will the poor Ganpat regain his lost memory? Will the sankat be over for all the people involved? Well, one finds that out as the story deliciously unfolds itself – layer by layer.
This and more form the essence of Sankat City, the fast-paced entertainer from Moserbaer and Seven Entertainment.
Sankat City is a black comedy and shows a flip side of Mumbai. It is a zany yet intelligent comedy film which is surreal and outrageously funny.
Cast of Sankat City:
Kay Kay Menon as Guru
Rimmi Sen as Mona
Anupam Kher as Faujdaar
Chunky Pandey as Sikandar Khan and Sheshaiyya
Manoj Pahwa as Gogi kukreja
Dilip Prabhavalkar as Ganpat
Yashpal Sharma as Pachisia
Hemant Pandey as Fillip Fattu
Sanjay Mishra as Lingam
Rahul Dev as Suleman Supari
Virendra Saxena as Godman
Shrivallabh Vyas as Sharafat
Gurpal Singh as Harnam singh
Kurush Deboo as Bawa Jee
Jahangir Khan as Lovely
Sunita Rajwar Gulbadan
CREDITS & CREW of Sankat City:
Presentation: Moserbaer Entertainment Ltd.
Production : A Seven Entertainment Ltd.
Written and directed by : Pankaj Advani
Costume Designer : Jerry D’souza
Choreography : Bhupendra Sayan & Adil Shaikh
Action : Mehmood Akbar Bakshi
Lyrics : Panchhi Jalonvi & Mehboob
Sound Designer : Arun Nambiar
Editor : Hemanti Sarkar
Music & Background score : Ranjit Barot
Singers : Sukhvinder, Ranjit Barot, Roop Kumar Rathod, June Banerjee
Cinematographer : Chirantan Das
Executive Producer : Maqbool Khan
Associate Producer : Rupali Mehra and Vikash Arya
Sankat City, movie review