The Big Bull

 STORY: Based on a real story, ‘The Big Bull’ follows the life and times of Hemant Shah – a smalltime stockbroker, who manipulates the loopholes in the country’s archaic banking system to create a massive bull run on the stock exchange. But at a time when the Indian economy was taking its big leap towards liberlisation, it was only a matter of time before Hemant Shah’s dream run, ended in a nightmare.

REVIEW: It’s a rags to riches true story that has captured the collective conscience of the world. Told successfully before in a bestseller and a hugely successful web series, there is little we don’t know already about India’s multi-crore stock market ‘scam’. So, co-writer and director Kookie Gulati had a mammoth task at hand to crunch the highs and lows of an enigmatic character, into a two –and-a-half-hour-long feature film. And for a film that’s ‘somewhat inspired by true events,’ Gulati succeeds only partially, as the real story is far more fascinating and exciting. Here, we are quickly taken through Hemant Shah’s (Abhishek A Bachchan) journey from a salaried middle-class man to a seasoned stockbroker, without actually seeing him slug it out in the stock market. The basis of his meteoric rise from the common man to the Messiah of the common man, feels rushed and underwhelming. Glimpses of his modest life in a Mumbai chawl, his relationship with his family and Priya (Nikita Dutta), the girl his heart beats for, takes up more time than his stock market shenanigans.

In the second act, however, the film’s narrative picks up pace, as Hemant Shah’s rising popularity and riches, earn him name, fame and enemies. Writers Arjun Dhawan and Kookie Gulati manage to build intrigue and tension around various episodes of Hemant’s run-ins with police, politicians and media, as he brazenly goes about manipulating each and every one. Some scenes stand out for their confrontational value. Also, the non-linear storytelling helps in breaking the monotony of repetitive conflicts. While it’s always a delight to see Mumbai when it was Bombay, the cinematography of the few south Mumbai locations is just about alright.