The striking thing about her performance as Leela is how tightly coiled and tense it seems she's ready at a moment's notice to kiss or kill (or both), never passive, never merely a photographic subject.
Singh prevails over a very odd (even by masala hero standards) mustache to give a deeply affecting and rich performance as Ram, but it's Padukone, as is increasingly the case, who steals the show with pure, deliberate, ferocious star power. What makes the ride as enjoyable as it is, and what truly give focus to Bhansali's lush, colorful compositions, are the performances of Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in the leads. After the intermission, he makes the wise decision to depart somewhat from the basic template, at the risk of a dip in pace, but which builds a considerable amount of suspense in the lead up the climax even if you know "Romeo and Juliet" like the back of your hand, Bhansali's shift into more of a traditional warring-clans masala story introduces no small degree of uncertainty about how it's all going to end, which is quite the achievement with a text as familiar as "R&J." The feeling is very much mutual, and, per "Romeo and Juliet," the lovers have to deal with the conflict between their respective families, and the repercussions of skirmishes between them.īhansali hews fairly close to Shakespeare in the first half of the film, peppering the dialogue with references to the play and even including some exchanges in rhymed verse. One fateful day Ram sees, and instantly falls in love with, his female counterpart in the rival clan, Leela ( Deepika Padukone). The heir apparent to the poorer of the two clans, Ram ( Ranveer Singh), disdains the gun violence that takes up so much of their day-to-day existence, preferring to hang out with his buddies and sell porn DVDs.
The scene is laid in fair Gujarat, in northwest India, where two rival clans have been warring for some 500 years and find themselves, in the present day, presiding over competing criminal empires, and spend their days armed to the teeth in open conflict in the streets of their village.
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