‘The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City’ is an attempt to portray the shadowy side of a big city like Mumbai and how, in order to blend in with the crowd and live up to their sky-high expectations, people make irreversible mistakes before the realisation sets in that life in a concrete jungle is not as rosy as it seems. ‘The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City’ has many enemies that kill its honest attempt towards highlighting the alarming issue of depression and suicide, and the length of it is one of them.

A collective of multiple parallel stories that occasionally intermingle, this tedious watch hopes to impart priceless lessons of life. Some of them include: “Ek model ki zindagi a choti hoti hain ”, “ zindagi mein harna par zindagi se mat harna ” and other gems that seem to be inspired by WhatsApp forwards. Set in the city of Mumbai, the film depicts the lives of seven different individuals — all consumed by situational depression — and how their paths intersect for better and worse

Bhatt’s Hussain is seen constantly shrinking his eyes to focus as if he was trying to read the teleprompter from a distance but the words made little sense. Menon, as an exasperated stockbroker on the edge, offers a restrained performance which stands out in a film where every character is so deliberately exaggerated. Unsurprisingly, none of the others from this cast even deserve a mention.

That this film dared to lift a sub-plot from the multiple-Academy Award-winner Crash, says that the makers were certain of one thing — not many will survive this one till the climax to notice. ‘The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City’ is chaotic, haphazard. The drama is a sum total of everything and that's where it goes completely wrong.