O’Romeo Movie Review – Bollywood Shakespeare Takes a Dive into Grisly Mafia Queens Territory
Movie – O’Romeo
Star cast – Shahid Kapoor, Triptii Dimri
Director – Vishal Bhardwaj
Producer – Sajid Nadiadwala
Productions Companies – Nadiadwala Grandsons Entertainment and VB Films
Ratings – 3.0
It must be Misbegotten Adaptations week. Vishal Bhardwaj, known for his nuanced, inventive adaptations of Shakespeare classics like Macbeth (Maqbool, 2003), Othello (Omkara, 2006), and Hamlet (Haider, 2014), takes a sharp turn with O’Romeo. Rather than a straightforward modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, this film dives into a grim true-crime world inspired by Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens of Mumbai the same source that fueled Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2022 hit Gangubai Kathiawadi. The result positions Bhardwaj alongside Bollywood’s recent shift toward lurid crime dramas like Animal and Dhurandhar, but the tonal jolt feels jarring imagine Kenneth Branagh following his early ‘90s Shakespeare triumphs with Natural Born Killers.
Set in the 1990s Mumbai underworld, Bhardwaj’s O’Romeo introduces us to Hussein Ustara (Shahid Kapoor), a heavily tattooed hitman nicknamed Romeo, and his Juliet, Afshan (Triptii Dimri), a grieving widow with a deadly vendetta. Their star-crossed story begins when Romeo saves her during a failed assassination attempt on the lawyer defaming her late husband, sparking dangerous enemies for both. The film’s gritty realism replaces romantic idealism—the fish tank through which Leonardo DiCaprio glimpsed Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet here sits beside a bed where Romeo entertains escorts while Juliet listens in. Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed.
The movie features bold visuals and thoughtful design beneath the grime, with strong performances from Kapoor and Dimri. Nana Patekar adds sly gravitas as the weary handler of our antihero. Yet, unlike Bhansali’s Gangubai, which balanced its intensity with tonal sensitivity, O’Romeo’s grueling three hours oscillate between crude brutality and emotional numbness. This is a bleak tale of obsession and degradation, where the dead-eyed lovers drag each other toward ruin and death. It’s a distinctive misfire, born of a filmmaker so consumed by the story that he swallows its poisons whole. Still, it’s a little heartbreaking to see such a thoughtful director trade his signature subtlety for a leering tough-guy narrative.
