The pace is relentless, the performances are memorable (Tusshar too finds his groove), the tenor is dramatic, yet realistic and the violence hits hard and proper. Go, get your thrills.

With Shootout, however, Gupta comes down to the lowest common denominator, pandering to the baser instinct in a manner which manages to make many in the audience squirm in their seats. Whether it is the crude jokes and the needlessly liberal doses of abusive language, the crudely shot love scenes between the principal characters played by John Abraham and Kangana Ranaut, or the manner in which the camera seeks to titillate the audiences in two of the item numbers, Shootout embodies much that is wrong with a certain kind of Indian cinema.

From the plot point of view, the film is very simple. In fact Amitabh Bachchan, who plays an advocate in the film, summarizes it all by asking a question – “If you see a man with a gun near your house, whom would you prefer – a cop or a gangster?” This pretty much justifies the horror acts that you see in the penultimate 30 minutes of the film when each of the gangsters meets with a brutal end.

By no means is this an accurate account of events or can be taken seriously as a piece of docu drama. Shootout at Wadala is pulpy, kitschy, Bollywood masala that makes no bones about its intentions: To titillate.