Analysis :

There are very few euphoric moments in the film partly due to the reason of its lazy writing that is carried out rather shakily, and rest because it doesn’t meet the standards set by its colossal predecessor. I can almost count the number of times I felt that ecstatic high inside me during the film. There are dialogues put in which make no sense and some are actually offensive to your gray cells without being remotely entertaining.

The film’s first part has a few good moments but nothing that the trailer hadn’t shown you. A few brilliant action scenes in the first half are done fabulously. There is a scene where Akshay and Imran leap off from one terrace to another, and that is perhaps the only place where the film shows some panache of what it had attempted on. The romantic angle was overtly done and somehow doesn’t have the required blaze. The chemistry between Sonakshi and her actors is not fabricated neatly and somehow it comes across as a shock when she declares her love for one and rejects the other! The screenplay had barely given any tender moments or delicate minutes of love and hence romance obsession seems quite out of the blue. The film fails to be a proper crime thriller or a love saga as it dismally flops at both doing absolutely no justice to either.

Performance :

Akshay Kumar is so sleazy that he will crack you up with his dialogue delivery. It is outright hilarious. The actor fails to add depth in his character and couldn’t infuse charisma or persona in a role that Emraan Hashmi had immortalized. This Shoaib can at best manage to be a mock don but his over the top acting is such a flop show! Sonakshi Sinha goes wrong every time she is in a commercial film. One can be rest assured that her performance in Lootera is a fluke or a mere shadow of director’s flawless cinematic abilities that he could extract such a wonderful performance from her. In this film, she is a chatterbox replete with idioticity which the director frames as naiveness. She shrieks as if possessed in the climax scene as bombards all her good, if she had done any.

Imran Khan is plain flat with nil emotions in his dialogues. His trying-too-hard-to-be-suave act will leave you yawning and doesn’t help in furthering the impression we have of him-his inherent inability to act. He could have done so much with the role but alas he painstakingly wastes every bit of it. There is only one solid scene that the director gave to actress Sonali Bendre and she was brilliant in it. She was the only one who delivered her role in a compelling and convincing manner. In few minutes, she added depth to her character and managed to convey the emotional wreckage Shoaib’s love had caused her! The supporting cast is needless and have nothing substantial to do. Mahesh Manjrekar’s odd gestures and postures was a pain in the genuine sense of the word.

Final Word:Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara screams to Bollywood to do away with its ridiculous trend of Dobaara films simply because this time the Dobaara was painful on its audience. I am going with a generous 2.5 for its novel concept which was built flimsily. I was left dumbfounded at how audaciously the film spends so much energy flaunting nothing that they give its real theme a miss! It is hard to point out whom to blame, yet the bottom line doesn’t change – you can easily miss this one and save yourself a headache. Now, it's your choice!!!

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI AGAIN Releases on 15th Aug 2013