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My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves : Movie Review
12th Jan 2008 21.30 IST
By Aparajita Ghosh

An ordinary story with a fairly predictable plot hardly makes for an interesting watch. That is exactly the case with director E Niwas’s film My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves .

The film’s title signifies the Bollywood aspirations of the protagonist, Anthony ( Nikhil Dwivedi ), an ordinary guy with extraordinary dreams. An orphan, Anthony was raised by father Braganza ( Mithun Chakraborty ), a priest whose other passion, besides Jesus, seems to be Ju Jitsu.

Anthony works as a bartender in a Mumbai pub run by Sikanderbhai ( Pawan Malhotra ) and his cronies. Sikanderbhai is Anthony’s mentor and benefactor.

Though he is told repeatedly by his friends that he doesn’t have the face to be a film star, Anthony struggles adamantly to get into films. Luckily, he gets a break and befriends the project’s cute assistant director ( Amrita Rao ).

And ironically, just when his dream is about to come true, Anthony unwillingly sees a murder and becomes a prospective witness for cops. On the other hand, there are gangsters who would stop Anthony from testifying to police.

Anthony is caught in a dilemma. The right path seems difficult, and the wrong path is an easy one. Which one will he choose?

‘My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves’ starts off well in the first half hour, but from then on keeps moving in circles till the interval point. Thankfully, the film picks momentum in the second half and the story unravels at a faster pace. But what unravels is nothing extraordinary.

To begin with, the movie is mounted on a weak script and the quality of dialogue writing is plain amateurish. The plot is riddled with expected twists and turns. And the biggest downer is the end, which can be predicted almost right from the start.

Nikhil Dwivedi suits his character as far as the looks go, but his acting, particularly his juvenile voice, leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, not a bad start for a first-timer.

Pawan Malhotra is terrific, playing with conviction a kohl-eyed gangster who can be both ruthless and benign.

Amrita Rao looks gorgeous but is kept only on the margins. Mithun Chakraborty infuses his charisma into his fatherly character. Javed Sheikh delivers a fine performance playing a cop investigating the murder of a colleague.

The less written about the music of this film, the better. ‘My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves’ has doses of lighthearted humour that makes the movie somewhat watchable in the first half. There is also a delightful cameo by Anil Kapoor who educates the protagonist about principles of good acting by Stanislavsky.

If only E Niwas had learnt similar principles on good filmmaking!

Rating: *1/2

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My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves
Nikhil Dwivedi
Mithun Chakraborty
Pawan Malhotra
Amrita Rao
Anil Kapoor
E Niwas