Thaindian News

By Subhash K. Jha
Mumbai, July 30 (IANS) Director Milan Luthria left no stone unturned to make his “Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai” appear like the 1978 “Don”. While Ajay Devgn’s character in the film has been designed around Big B’s persona, the film’s mood and background score are also in tune with the espionage thriller.

Moreover, “One Upon…” took its own sweet time to get to the censors as the director was busy trying to get the texture and quality of the background music from “Don”.

“It wasn’t easy at all. I had a new composer, Sandeep Shirodkar, to do the background score. I wanted the entire smoky atmosphere, the mood of intrigue suspense, tension and romance of the 1970s to come out of the music. My reference point was the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ‘Don’,” Luthria says.

The effort to get the right music took much longer than expected. And the film went for censoring much later than Luthria had imagined.

“But the effort was worth it,” says Luthria proudly.

An even prouder moment was when Luthria’s mentor Mahesh Bhatt saw the film Wednesday evening.

Says Luthria: “Mahesh is my boss. When I saw him whistling and cheering my film, I felt I had done my duty.”

With Haji Mastan’s adopted son and three biological daughters trying to prevent the release of the film, producer Ekta Kapoor and director Milan Luthria have quickly followed the court directive and inserted a disclaimer saying the film is a fictionalised biopic of Haji Mastan’s life.

However, the disclaimer is not the ordinary kinds that says - “All the characters of the film are fictional and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.”

“Our disclaimer says that it has nothing to do with Haji Mastan. We also have to put out a press statement saying that none of us from the film has ever made any statement claiming our film had anything to do with Haji Mastan,” Luthria explains.

But the question is, would the disclaimer pacify Haji Mastan’s family, especially when so many of the incidents in the plot would directly remind them of their family matters?