Mumbai in 2003 is not a pretty place. It is rife with corrupt cops, conniving gangsters and greedy politicians. Pratap Pandit (Sonu Sood) and Arun Inaamdar (Naseeruddin Shah) are ruthless encounter specialists embroiled in a messy competition to be the cop with the highest body count. This means lots of bullets, blood and backstabbing. Other players in this trying action drama include a TV reporter (Amit Sadh), a local politician (Vinay Pathak) and some more cops, gangsters and informants who watch from the sidelines and contribute little to the movie. Somewhere in the 105 minutes is a story that tells us nothing new or fascinating about the nexus between the cops and the underworld.

Maximum is crammed with so many secondary characters that they befuddle the already complicated proceedings. Who is being killed? Why? Should we care? Even the use of a reporter as a narrator does little to make the events easy to follow. More importantly, Kaushik’s script fails to showcase the hatred or power play between the two amoral leads. Shah makes fleeting appearances only to flash the gun, solve the Rubik’s cube or deliver dialogues at a snail’s pace. Maximum is Sood’s first outing as a hero. Unfortunately, it offers him little material to play with.