Up until the halfway mark, Bullett Raja is rollicking entertainment. Our gangster protagonists kill, maim, kidnap, and intimidate their rivals, all the while bickering and joking, in Dhulia’s direct nod to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Sadly the film’s screenplay comes undone post intermission, its second half disintegrating into a bloody revenge saga.

Tigmanshu Dhulia is best when he opts for content drawn for reality instead of flying off into an absurd land where everyone detests one another with a vengeance. Thodasa control kijiye, brother! Make cinema, not bullets.

For ‘Bullett Raja’, the extra ‘t’ for emphasis, is a potboiler with little pretensions to realism but much too close a connection with Dhulia to entirely jettison it too.

Bullett Raja has flashes of fire but mostly it seems to be hobbled by a misguided sense of machismo. Everyone struts — including Vidyut Jamwal who makes an appearance as a dynamic cop — but no one goes anywhere. Which is a shame because these UP cowboys could have been fun.

Bullett Raja is rife with predictable scenes, bad editing and a lack of control over the script, which spirals into an unending loop of absurdity. The pseudo-patriotism blends into personal enmity with the corrupt without much warning, leaving the viewers confused.

with its grave minuses and fewer plusses is an underwhelming film much to my disbelief. The last few films of Dhulia had made me believe that he ranks amongst the top notch filmmakers of this generation. Unfortunately the man goes wrong with his favorite recipe of showcasing the ills of political nexus, as he hands out a story that barely has any moments and remains flat for most part. Saif Ali Khan and Jimmy Shergill chemistry is the only best part from the acting section. But in all its triteness, Bullett Raja is Dhulia’s most uninspired work till date.

The story is unconvincing and at many points you might feel that the movie is going haywire. In fact, uncanny behaviour of the characters might irritate you in the first half. The film has a strong UP connect. From dialogues to accent, Tigmanshu Dhulia has focused on minute details.

There are no surprises at any stage, it is all so very predictable. And its all the more disappointing because with the ordinary story Dhulia doesn’t elevate it much either. There is the odd scene that you let out a chuckle (like the scene where a dacoit wants to surrender) but by and large it is not very engaging.

…had the scope to bring about some content in the current crop of massy entertainers and could cater to the intelligentsia but Tigmanshu Dhulia’s inept attempt ruins all such chances. Quite a downer!

To Bullett Raja’s credit, it does provide entertainment sporadically, and Dhulia ensures the film isn’t as slapdash as most Devgn-Kumar films in the same space seen recently. Yet, in his effort to make a “big budget commercial film”, Dhulia seems to have lost some of his bite as a filmmaker, which is a letdown, given how good a job he was doing with entertaining audiences anyway.

Watch if a dumbed-down film about senseless revenge and violence fills your heart. Otherwise, strictly avoid.