My takeaway from Bypass Road
is that perhaps it isn't such a good idea
to let an actor write a script, 
play the lead role,
co-produce the film 
and have his brother direct it.
Because then what you get isn't a film, 
it's a showreel.
Neil Nitin Mukesh has written the story, 
screenplay and dialogue of Bypass Road
which is a fantastically convoluted thriller.
There are so many twists, reveals, false alarms,
schemers and disgruntled lovers
that I just lost track of the story.
I honestly can't tell you 
what actually went down
in this lavish Alibaug house 
in which much of the film is set
and where everyone seems 
to just want to kill each other.
But we do get NNM as Vikram Kapoor,
a dashing playboy, a loving elder brother,
a vulnerable wheelchair-bound victim,
a Machiavellian mastermind 
and a debonair fashion designer.
That, incidentally, is his day job.
He's the style guru who sleeps with 
and then dumps their showstopper Sarah.
She tells him – Mujhe hurt karoge, chalega. 
Mere ego ko hurt karoge, nahi chalega.
I'd like to throw that line at someone, 
but I'm still trying to figure out what it means.
Vikram is also dating an intern
who reads Harry Potter to him when he's
hospitalized after a car accident.
Clearly the global conversation around
sexual politics in the workplace has eluded him.
That could be because he's too busy dealing 
with his father who neglected him,
his stepmother who's plotting against him
and these two other men who 
just keep showing up to create trouble.
Vikram's only ally in this house is the
trusted house help Kaka,
who looks after him.
But we all know what happens 
to characters like these.
Like his brother, debutant director 
Naman Nitin Mukesh wants to cover all bases.
So Bypaas Road has shades of Neil's
debut film Johnny Gaddaar,
then goes into Madhur Bhandarkar’s 
Fashion territory and then finally settles
into a slasher-meets-home invasion movie 
like Game Over.
Naman has a fondness 
for overhead drone shots.
We see way too much 
of the Alibaug jetty
and we get multiple shots 
of a Bypass Road road sign
almost as though Naman doesn't trust us 
to remember the name of the film.
Characters also keep repeating dialogue.
Like somebody will say: 
Iss gun mein abhi bhi ek goli baaki hai
and then immediately follow it up with: 
there is still one bullet left in this gun.
It's mystifying.
Naman creates some effectively 
suspenseful sequences.
Like a moment in Vikram's bedroom when 
he's trying to escape a masked killer
and a scene in which 
he nearly drowns in a bathtub.
But Naman doesn't have 
much to work with.
The script is incoherent and 
the characters are cardboard.
Apart from Neil, 
the others have little to do.
Rajit Kapoor plays 
Vikram's clueless father.
There's a flashback in which he wears 
an unintentionally comical hairpiece
and I almost felt a little sorry for him.
Gul Panag is the stepmom who wears 
a swimsuit and drinks with girlfriends
and so we know she must be bad.
And Adah Sharma is the intern who 
devotedly nurses Vikram back to health
despite his supermodel shenanigans.
In this world, bad behavior 
has no consequences,
which would be fine 
if the plot wasn't so silly.
The unkindest cut is a tepid club remix 
of "So Gaya Yeh Jahan" from Tezaab -
one of my favourite 
Chunky Pandey memories,
now ruined forever.
