By Joginder Tuteja

With movies as diverse as SUR and KAANTE (both of which released in 2002), it had seemed that there was yet another addition to the list of unconventional actors in Bollywood. Lucky Ali had impressed in both, former being a musical and the latter being a thriller. However, he chose to lie low over all these years and only did occasional films like KASAK and GOOD LUCK, none of them boasting of anything worthwhile to talk home about.

Now Lucky Ali is returning to the big screen with RUNWAY, an action thriller, where he is playing the role of a super villain named Khalid. A suave and dashing Pakistani who was the highest ever paid assassin in the world of crime, Khalid is a character that has a red alert declared against him by the Interpol for the past many years.

Informs a member from the film’s production team, “Khalid’s character got Lucky interested immediately. He was intrigued by the style of this super cool villain who did not believe in carrying luggage around with him and therefore preferred to work alone and leaving no traces behind him. His modus operandi was different in every crime he committed and he seemed to be content with his piece of work as there was always a gap of couple of years between his crimes.”

In the times when comedies have been the order of the day, RUNWAY takes audiences back to the 80s era when villains used to be a huge force. This is apparent in the publicity material of the film which describes Khalid as below:

‘There was an old adage in the corridors of crime that if Khalid takes up a job, no power in the world could save the target and if the victim ever lived to tell his tale then it would mean that Khalid is no more. And that no victim of Khalid ever lived to tell his tale meant that Khalid was very much alive and ticking.’

Well, we look forward to how convincing does Lucky Ali indeed turns out to be in a role like this in RUNWAY which features Amarjeet Shukla (who had made his debut 3 years back with IQRAAR - BY CHANCE as the leading man) along with Tulip Joshi and Deepal Shaw. Also starring Shahwar Ali, Sharat Saxena, Rauf Lala, Ishrat Ali, (Miss Afghanistan) Vida Samadzai and Dayanand Shetty in supporting roles, the film has music by Shamir Tandon and lyrics by Shabbir Ahmed.

Produced by Reeta J Shukla and directed by Suniel and Praful, RUNWAY (which comes with a tagline of ‘Love Among Gun Shots’) is all set for a 19th June release. -Sampurn Media