DIRECTOR: Ram Gopal Varma

Satya had hired hoodlums tuck into ‘ghar ka khana’ and exchange desultory notes about that chipkali wali picture (Jurassic Park). Company gave us mob bosses and their foot soldiers in the familiar dance of loyalty and double-cross. Now Ram Gopal Varma brings out the third in what might turn out be a series, Contract, in which he throws into his standard mix of the underworld and the cops, a handful of ‘aatankwadis’—those bearded Osama acolytes who want to blow up Mumbai with tons of RDX.

Nowhere near as fresh as Satya, nor as sharply acted as Company, Contract nonetheless manages to hold our attention with the way RGV has managed to arrange his characters and plot in a narrative that moves along swiftly, helmed by new faces.

Adhvik reminds you of the set-up-for-stardom Vivek Oberoi in Company: he doesn’t have the latter’s piercing talent, but he’s buff, carries off a black singlet well, and knows how to shoot. His romantic interest (Sakshi) is refreshingly kinky, not turning a hair when an informer is being electrocuted a couple of yards from her. Only later she tells the hero, that she learnt very early on that the only way to survive on the streets was following her rising-to-the-top-of-the-heap hood brother’s credo: Ya logon ko apni taraf modh lo, ya phod do.

Hurray, Ramu’s back to doing his mob thing (no more ghastly re-makes of classics), in which he concentrates on this very elemental philosophy to the exclusion of all else. Guys being tortured, killer cops being chased naked on the streets of Mumbai in a scene that goes on for several minutes, rent flesh and scarlet splotches raining on the screen in bucketfuls : all fall into RGV’s comfort zone; we’ve seen them all before, and here they are again, with a twist here, and a couple of surprises there.