In a hyper-capitalistic city where everything/one is for sale, where desires can be preyed upon as a means to an end, how does one take on a man who wants… nothing? It’s the question at the heart of Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower (2011) – following Yogesh Murthy, a resident of Vishram society, who refuses to cower in front of a gleaming offer by builder Dharmesh Shah.In director Ben Rekhi’s feature film adaptation, Murthy is changed to Mishra, presumably because of Manoj Bajpayee playing the part. Bajpayee played a similarly stoic, wilting Mumbai resident in Bhonsle (2018). Shah is played by Boman Irani, who was a builder in Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006) too. Irani is great at making his villains palpably human. There’s a wonderful moment where he coughs through his chronic bronchitis—and then takes a deep breath of the noxious fumes at a building site. “It gives me life,” he tells a doctor earlier in the film, after being informed about his deteriorating lung condition because of his very line of work.It’s an offer most Mumbaikars residing in creaky suburban buildings dream of. The film is set in 2010, and hence the offer for Rs 25000 per square foot (two and a half times the market rate) seems right-ish. When Shah announces his offer, most residents can barely contain their excitement as they calculate their own probable windfall earnings. Distinguishing the two wings of the building as one full of young IT professionals, lawyers (hence pliable), while the other witg some sentimental elderly, feels almost too neat a divide. As if only the elderly are capable of idealism, and the young couples are too busy slobbering at Shah’s offer to even consider the consequences of the proposed redevelopment.A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Last Man In Tower’.Written for the screen by Bombay veteran, Sooni Taraporevala, the ensemble of actors is an exciting one. It looks promising on paper: Harish Khanna plays the mousy secretary of Vishram Towers, Uday Chandra and Madhuri Bhatia play Mr and Mrs Pinto, Yogesh’s best pals in the building and the only ones standing with him initially. Chandan Roy Sanyal is red-haired realtor Ajwani, who refers to currency as ‘chaak-let’, as if to emphasise his Sindhi roots. Swarupa Ghosh is Audrey Rego, an idealistic social worker who is initially opposed to Shah’s offer, but is lured too easily with the promise of sending her daughter abroad for higher studies. Sukant Goel is Masterji’s (as Mishra is called) distant and pragmatic son, at odds with his father’s way of life. Goel and Bajpayee’s scenes feel like an indie filmmaker’s rehashes of Baghban.It’s a lovely bunch of actors, but Taraporevala’s screenplay offers little beyond perfunctory characters. Which is surprising because she’s written a sparkling film like Salaam Bombay! (1987), and her own (relatively low-key, but enjoyable) directorial debut, Little Zizou (2008). Divya Dutta’s Mrs Puri, mother to a boy with Down syndrome and a cordial neighbour to Masterji, is the only character afforded an arc.Rekhi’s film feels too preoccupied with maintaining momentum onwards, forgetting to dwell on moments. The Mumbai in the film, has few distinct qualities – barring the fixed timings for water, and the sporadic monsoon lashing against the crumbling Vishram Towers. I didn’t feel any of Mumbai’s humidity in the film, which might be a telling detail about a film that seems to be missing a homegrown gaze.A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Last Man In Tower’.Adiga’s novel, like The White Tiger (2008), is a satire. Which makes the stock characters ripe for exploiting their stereotypes. There’s some frenetic imagery in Adiga’s novel, where he contrasts the “democracy” of Versova beach, where the city’s rich honchos jog alongside the homeless attending their nature’s call early in the morning. Unlike Danny Boyle in Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Rekhi is less adventurous with his choices, and thus fairly predictable. I was annoyed by a trite scene where Shah doubles the wage rate of a union leader, after he attempts to negotiate better safety measures for workers at the building site. The attempted forgery of Masterji’s signature in a society meeting, the isolation he faces after becoming the lone man opposed to the redevelopment scheme, the constant disappointment he has to deal with from all quarters in his fight to preserve his ordinary life, in exchange for a shiny new one – it’s on the tried-and-tested path. The film seems to have diluted the amused cynicism of Adiga’s novel, where other residents see Masterji’s contentment as insanity. Instead, the film plays it too straight by hitting melodramatic notes, distilling him into a sentimental widower, and Mrs Puri as a desperate mother.Bajpayee, a solid actor on most days, brings a frailty to Yogesh Mishra that keeps things interesting. This is not a ‘David vs Goliath’ story – a dissenting individual like Masterji is a speck of dust in a city heavily incentivised to keep ascending. In a city, where crores of desires are overflowing from the cup, a single man’s resistance to change can become a nuisance. Like in the case of Masterji and Mrs Puri, I would have liked the film to go deeper into the other characters in Vishram Towers, most of whom are sidelined once they sign on for the redevelopment scheme.Given the state of the infrastructure in Mumbai in 2026, Adiga’s novel is arguably more timely than when it came out in 2011. However, at a runtime of 97 minutes, I think Last Man In Tower is crucially 20 minutes short. Which, it could have used to breathe, and establish the world more vividly, before driving up the stakes ahead of that cynical climax. Rekhi’s film is passable in theory, but like with some of the best films, I wish I was more affected by it when it ended.*The Last Man in Tower is playing in theatres.