Intriguingly, the movie starts with a white ambassador being fished out of the sea. An underworld murder attempt? No, it's just angst ridden DCP whatshisname (a nicely brooding Randeep Hooda) attempting to kill himself. Apparently, he couldn't get his service revolver to fire.
The DCP feels responsible for the Mumbai blasts, having allowed the alleged perpetrator to grow into a don during his ACP days. He is referring to Shoaib Khan (hint, hint), who sowed the seeds of a spectacular career in crime during the time of none other than Sultan Mirza (hint, hint), the don of Mumbai. The Machiavellian ACP thought he would play one against the other but never realised that he was creating a Frankenstein's monster. Shoaib is played by the trying-to-brood-but- never-quite-making-it-even-with-the-Easy-Rider moustache Emraan Hashmi and Sultan is played by the intense-expression-in-all-my-roles Ajay Devgun.
We go through the standard rise, conflict, political shenanigans, protege taking down the mentor routine dutifully done with excellent technical quality. We also go through it with absolutely no feeling for any of the major players. This is a bland, emotionless film with none of the characters actually building any empathy with the viewer. Take, for instance, a comparable gangster movie like Vaastav. The movie hooks you because you feel for Sanjay.
This is why Ajay Devgun is unable to move into greatness. That undefinable quality that allows the audience to root for you. Very few have this. Take Sanjay Dutt - an uneven actor, two left feet, no real talent for dialogue delivery; but you come out of his successful movies feeling for him and quite enjoying the ride - Munnabhai, Vaastav, Mission Kashmir. In the new Lamha; technical finesse and contemporary relevance aside, Sunju baba carries the movie on the strength of his style - I wouldn't use the word performance.
Sorry to digress, this was supposed to be about Once Upon a Time.
Wait a minute, in a way, that says it all about the movie.
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