Cashing in on action

Cashing in on action

With bad boys, babes and blow-ups, director Anubhav Sinha says his thriller Cash is full paisa vasool

THE only thing in Cash that matches with Oceans 12 is its genre — this Ajay Devgan, Sunil Shetty, Riteish Deshmukh, Zayed Khan, Esha Deol, Shamita Shetty and Dia Mirza starrer is also a heist movie. "The story, look, content, everything else is different," stresses Dus director Anubhav Sinha, "Even the style is more John Woo (Mission Impossible 2, Face/Off)."

In fact, Sinha describes Cash (releasing July 27) as the cooler, lighter film compared to his massive hit Dus, putting it in the league of comic book thrillers. "Dus involved saving 25,000 lives but Cash is about stealing three diamonds. Even if you see a chase, nobody gets hurt; there isn't a drop of blood spilt except in a small animation sequence. You can take a five-year-old to this film and not ask them to look away for a second. There's just bikes, people and cars flying in the air!"

And though Cash has Sunil, Zayed, Esha and Dia from his Dus cast, Sinha says it was always meant to revolve around big gun Devgan. "I owe at least half of what I've achieved to Sanju (Sanjay Dutt), but I didn't approach Abhishek (Bachchan) and him. They didn't have dates and it wouldn't be fair putting them in a tight spot over friendship."

Sinha says his team really wanted him to do a "cool action film" after Dus and Ajay, Zayed, Riteish and Sunil had a ball on the sets. The director says he was extremely cautious with these pranksters on board.
"I stayed far away from them. It's like expecting to open a door and fall into a deep well. Ajay discovered this store that sold gags. The next day, I saw Riteish and him come smiling up to me. Riteish had this MP3 player with headphones and said, 'Tune yeh remix suna?' I put the earphones on and pressed the play button. I immediately felt a mild shock! The whole unit was laughing at me."
The director also played along with their looks, giving blond spiked hair to Ajay and Riteish and blue to Zayed. "At the risk of sounding pompous, style is not something you can induce, just like personal clothing. It's within me — I think if I had tried it with Cash, it would have showed."

Sinha is ace at action, but says he'll switch genres with his next, coming by 2008-end. Yet, he's had fun with Cash. "I always say that action movies are made by kids and watched by kids between six to sixty years. Look at John Woo and Jackie Chan. They have to be kids at heart! Chan must be mad to jump from one 30-storeyed building to another."
Cash's own action is more flamboyant, with sky-diving, kite-surfing, water-skiing and skate-boarding during the shoot at Cape Town. Of course, there are also the mandatory cars blowing up. "We did one stunt from a 57-storeyed building. I have no fear of heights, but looking down from there, I promise you I wasn't comfortable!" The bad guys, led by Ajay Devgan's character, have an underworld don (Sunil) and a security officer (Shamita)to contend with. Of course, like the hot Dus music video, Sinha is also shooting one with Cash, again laid to Vishal-Shekhar's rhythms. "It's a single shot music video choreographed by Rajiv. My editor is already giving me dirty looks!"