Kaminey: KICK AFF!

Explosive, audacious and spectacularly entertaining crime caper from the Man who has singlehandedly defined, reinvented and set the benchmark for the noir genre in Bollywood-Vishal Bharadwaj. After the decadently sinister Maqbool and the masterfully brawny but hideously miscast Omkara, clearly third time’s the charm for me as Kaminey is everything that the respectable-indies-showing-how-it’s-done-but-just-missing-it [read Sankat City, Mithya], the-now-anonymous-and-transposable-but-once-iconic RGV vehicles, and the unapologetically-plagiarised-then-desified-artificial-posturing of Lakhias, Sanjay Guptas and Anubhav Sinhas want to be, but never will be, for this my friend is the “real thing”.

This is the real roar amongst the shrill catcalls that we have been hearing for the past many years. This was how we did it, i.e. full-on and by that I mean unapologetic, racy, throbbing full-on. Not the diffident, neurotic, self-consciously ironic full-on with arsey-humble nods to the films of yore [DevD, Johnny Gaddaar anyone?] and thanks to Bhardwaj we will continue to. And how can I forget: in the year, where the clueless and the uninitiated went mental after the synthetic “realistic pap” of Slumdog Millionaire, Kaminey couldn’t have come at a better time to show, pardon me repeating myself here, HOW IT IS BLOODY DONE.

So it goes like this, two brothers or slumdogs shall I say-identical twins-one an insufferable stammerer Guddu, another a lisper [actually, a liffper] Charlie, a fast-lane bookie with dreams of becoming a millionaire who go their own separate ways to chase their individual destinies but end up, as it happens, getting wound up in each other’s affairs unknowingly thanks to a girl and a guitar [watch the movie to know what I mean] and as is typical of such larger-than-life monozygotics screwed-up-by-the-ever-powerful-destiny-to-come-face-to-face epic thrillers, cross each other paths again with insane, hysterical, noisy, and rather sentimental repercussions.

Shahid’s sincere attack on this two-pronged devil of a headlining role is not a pitch affected or misfired. He is one guy who has taken almost superhuman leaps to overcome his boy-man impishness and thrown himself in the arena to grab the gauntlet, and grab it he does. Just that, once again, he’s surrounded by an intimidating amount of histrionic pandemonium courtesy a formidably seminal supporting ensemble which more often than not slip the carpet away from Shahid’s candy-ass stutterer or the silent-seething liffper when the frames are shared. I don’t want to deconstruct his performance further per se, because I can’t fault it on many levels [the face-off between twins and the climactic showdown alongwith the natural chemistry with his screen-love are a joy to watch, courtesy him], but when viewed in the bigger picture, for a leading man, maybe more intrinsic and not transformed bravura could have just sent the film on another level. Call me unreasonable. Giving credit where its due, he’s one talented sonofabitch who can now be given a flipping trophy without wondering if he could do better. This is him at his best and he performs with an appreciation for subtlety and internalisation that is light years ahead of his contemporaries, so what if he’s just a tad less of an ass-whopper he’s so meticulously projected to be. Still, brave!

Priyanka Chopra’s performance and presence is wholesomely winsome. The lass is going from strength to strength with every passing movie and why not? She performs with that rare sparkle and uninhibitedness that A-listing leading ladies of nowadays are simply devoid of conjuring. Be it going ballistic on her brother and his motley set of cronies with an assault rifle or any firearm in the vicinity [by God's grace in this grimy Mumbai underbelly, there's always more than ten littered around] or mouthing off her goody-two-shoes boyfriend who gives the staple “priorities” lecture when she gets knocked up, as Sweety, Piggy Chops stands her own amidst the testosterone-motherlode she’s surrounded by.

I can’t fill this space with the rest of the credits [I wish I had a notepad to pen them all down] but suffice to say, spearheaded by Amol Gupte as Piggy Chop’s big brother, they seem to be having so much fun, just watching the whole crew perform and react had me in splits and smiling throughout. Fantabulous is the word. Watch Gupte do pretend shelling with Charlie’s partner-in-crime or the officers interrogating Guddu making him sing to break through the stammer].

The writing is so cued in to every character’s quirks without ever making it obvious, the swearing [of just the right level, not the crass verbal smut that seems to pass off as humour] is pureed with a consistent spattering of wit and then there’s the sheer convolution of the going-ons which give this Jeffrey Archer meets Tarantino via Guy Ritchie and Salim-Javed of 70s phillum a crackling energy all its own. As the various, precariously ignited and staged subplots and fringe characters all converge in that swashbuckling finale, you want to wolf-whistle. Its that good.

And man, does it help or what that Vishal is a composer par excellence? What a thoroughly keen ear for giving cadence to his action [Dhan TaNan is the anthem for 2009 thank you very much], gravitas to his drama [just watching the way brothers seek each other, communicate in an understanding that goes well beyond the slice of their lives captured by the camera], potency to the introspective scenes [those few moments when the title track plays] and punctuation to the insanely-well timed situational comedy. And I can’t believe I haven’t said a word of how accomplished his visual sense is. That wafting and gliding 1000-rupee-note scene that instantly transports Charlie from the ringside to neon-glow of gold-silver-mint-fresh-moneybills world: we are there with Charlie, or as the foreboding flashbacks finally get sewed to a crisp backstory, the tipping point in Charlie’s life is signified by replacing his kid-self with the muscular adult he’s become are just a few examples of what makes Kaminey so special. We have fun and we don’t have to leave our brains on auto-pilot, when was the last time that happened?

This guy Vishal is just blessed with an astute sense of what makes good cinema, and as viewers we are blessed that he can tell it like the way he wants: archetypical larger than life fables and morality sagas, dunked in machismo, attitude and brawn all his own, and always so coolly, so quintessentially Indian.

Rush now to see this, I write any more and I’ll spoil it!

★★★★★★★★☆☆

Luck By Chance: Finally, Bollywood has its own “Extras”

 

 

It had to take new blood to infuse new life into cinema. And this is going to be a cracker of an year for the Bollywood, I can just feel it. The corporate bubble’s burst, the ridiculously over-paid and over-exposed male troika have whored their brand value to the point where their very name on the credits make discerning viewers shun the thought of seeing the movie on the big screen, and the turf is spectacularly fertile for new ideas, new ways of storytelling, new brand of acting and emoting. In all, Bollywood’s foray into avant garde cinema this time around will be more creative. It is an exciting time at the movies and what better movie to spearhead the new year than Luck By Chance.

LBC isn’t perfect but its sensibilities and aesthetic reek of refinement and level-headed-ness seldom seen in Indian cine,a. Chartering the graph of a struggling actor and a starlet in the world of Hindi film industry, it has the familiar trappings to eke out drama-success morphing a person, the familiar growing-up lessons where the protagonist gets carried away and then retreads his steps. But, and this is a huge one, the screenplay is unflinching in offering not redemption, but a bittersweet realisation. In fact it does one better and switches perspective completely in the final 10 minutes as we have the homecoming star doing a heartfelt guilt-ridden speech to his erstwhile sweetheart who believed in him when no-one else did. The girl buys the earnestness of the apology no doubt, but not the guy’s reasons and point of view. And she tells him outright, it is none of his fault either, it is really how some people are. Its all about them. The guy weeps. It is sad to be told that, especially in a weak moment. She looks away not wanting the emotion of the moment to cloud her voice of reason. And from then on, the whole perspective of the movie changes as we have a really wise monologue from the girl who’s at peace with who she is, what she has achieved in life and her definitions of “success” and “failure”, two words this movie and its characters are obsessed with. That, and luck. And rightly so, given the context of India and the soul-shatteringly competitive world of Bollywood. 

Other than the novel graph and the final act, the movie plays like an unpretentious insider’s view of the insider and is blessed with splendid wit and intelligence. I mean, the lady manages to pull a Gervais on Bollywood in her debut stroke. And so expertly at that. Just look at the credits of the four cameos-Aamir (playing himself as the uber-perfectionist auteur in a delicious period piece directed by Raju Hirani no less), ShahRukh (playing the familiar grounded superstar forever ready to spill life’s truisms), Kareena, Diya Mirza (the latter taking not even a dialogue to chew everything around her-her reaction at the grand inaugration party to Farhan’s character is piece de resistance) and Anurag Kashyap (watch him suggest an artsy script-addition at which he gets rebuked by Rishi Kapoor who takes dig at his festivalesque sensibilities or get vexed over the star-daughter’s Hindi pronounciation-so much so he has to change the word khoon to murder, clearly an in-dig at Javed Akhtar’s obsession with language). There’s Karan Johar and Manish Malhotra too spilling some inside beans or having a giggle on the in-jokes. You can even spot Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi (I think this is the first time I have seen her not say a dialogue on camera) sharing industry jokes. 

Not only that, it is the level of performance she has managed to juice out of every one of the actors that makes me admire her. Every character is perfectly cast or is cast and written around their strengths (Yea, I will stick to the latter explanation thanks to all those casting stories I have read in Zoya’s soundbytes in the last 4-5 years) and the end-result is excellent. The ensemble looks so comfortably cosetted in the film’s environment, you just believe them from the word go. Its difficult to choose who comes up trumps but the motley of 10 performers that people most of LBC’s frames all have their charms. Farhan Akhtar’s got the face of an actor-that which folds and screws itself up on every expression and he is intelligent enough to know it. His character arc is probably the most familiar but his underplay and approach to projecting emotions is refreshing, although his voice undoes quite a lot of his scenes which play like extensions of his ego-clashes in Rock On or the arguments he might have in real life. He is more or less playing himself in these movies and is lucky enough to have the clout who can write material around him. Still, there isn’t a dint of complacency and he’s sincere all the way through. For Konkona Sen, Sona is a cakewalk. She plays it straight mostly as her character requires her to, and I wasn’t bowled over by her characterisation at first which played as an extension of her other urban angsty characters, but the final showdown right uptil the credits is all hers. This extra layer of borderline-unlikeability of this now-hardened egg challenges you and it is to Koko’s credit, you are able to see this change in hers. That and the one scene where she slams the mag on the face of her snooping-journo-friend in his office has a believable dramatic flourish.

And then there are the supporting performers. All brilliant. All totally tuned-in and pitch-perfect to the last decibel. There’s Rishi Kapoor as the old-school-producer who can talk the talk but is exasperated by the present-day workings (watch him explain how much he paid the now-superstar in his first film and getting all animated, swivelling in chair for effect to Farhan–its comedy genius! Or when he refuses the skimpily clad Isha to not touch his feet, I died laughing!), then his airy-fairy numerology-astology-swearing socialite wife played with smiles-forever Juhi Chawla who just radiates the frame with her harmless, thankless presence only once coming to foreground to hold her husband’s hand in that one crucial moment he gets all sour with the world around him. Then there is Hrithik Roshan playing a warped version of himself (in true Extras style)- the superstar who secretly leaps on knowing a colleague’s been through an accident but is introspective enough to know the current project is proper sh*t on toast and what it would do to his image (the monologue to his producer-Rishi Kapoor is hilarious of why he can’t continue is well done). The star manages a time out with the urchins across the window of his 4×4 when he’s tired from whining about his delusory director and it made me glad no end that Mr Roshan finally did something as real as this after some 5 years of treating us with bloated, over-budget pap.

Sanjay Kapoor as the delusional debutante director who’s managed a break thanks to his influential brother (oh the in-digs never end!), and finally the fiery mother-daughter duo played with relish by Dimple Kapadia (watch her bare her fangs as a scoop on her debutante daughter makes it to a cinemag or revel in the ass-kissing courtesy Farhan, and her suspicions and the way she observes and reacts to people-ah just to watch this lady perform I can see LBC again) and Isha-Kisna-Shravani (Man, how my heart ached as I watched her do the ridiculous sidekick routine in last year’s stinker U Me Aur Hum and how it made me smile to see her perform so ably-she brings to LBC what Amy Adams brings to most of her movies-she’s at once gorgeous, hilarious, dumb, disillusioned-the insufferable hormonal bimbo with much beneath the surface, I loved her). Then there are the guys playing Farhan’s friends (one a depressing idealist, the other a lightweight opportunist) and then there’s this all-heart woman playing Aly Khan’s wife… I could go on and on.     

The movie’s canvas is very varied, and when it occasionally switches gears to pay ode to the ever-reliable dance routine it does it with a tinge of its own brand of craziness. Baawre is like Dholi Taaro imagined by Wachowskis. And I loved it. The whole carnival feel, the mad choreography, the funny lines, the hilarious choice of fabrics and Hrithik managing to make even the most audacious of moves look amazing. Attaboy! And yes, how can we not do without that one number playing in the background to manipulate us into feeling for the guy on screen? So we have an expected lyrical delight Sapnon se Bhare Naina as Farhan Akhtar enters the derelict audition studio which is chock-full with boys as driven, as struggling as him. And the whole realisation comes like a waterfall… there are loads like him, in fact worse off than he is and probably even more driven, how is he going to impress in this competition? Will his luck bail him out? Its a beautiful moment and thankfully pondered over for the whole five minutes of the terrific song.

And most of all the film’s tone, its visual and acoustic mood treads a fine balance between stark realism and escapist fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, nor has used the backdrop of Bollywood to extract laughs (I think I have had my fill thanks to OSO and the endless TV comedy shows). It manages to be something more- lofty (one’s path in life dictated by random strokes of chance or one’s choices or a bit of both?), surreal and wistful (the opening credits have to be seen to be believed).  What remains consistent throughout is the warmth in the movie’s tone. The characters are all lovingly sketched and it is a movie that has terrific repeat-value because its so well-written and so well-directed. Its not perfect, it feels at times a tad long and indulgent (nothing unusual considering this is Zoya Akhtar’s first labour of love), but its got the subtlety and understanding for the medium that it is inhabiting and satirising at once that exploitative jerks like Bhandarkar can’t even touch. Easily one of the most emotionally evolved and layered urbane dramadies to come out of Bollywood. Kudos to the Akhtar tribe for adding so much to Indian cinema.

My rating: *** and 1/2  out of 5   

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (Hindi)

Wow! I sound angry, once more: “Give me a fucking break someone from these sappy braindead Bollywood romantic dramas. Ridiculous, preposterous, IQ of sub 10, synthetic to the core with weirdly concocted conflicts and self-congratulatory rejoicing in weirder resolutions (what are these people smoking?), its retrogressive and suprisingly a painful bore. The only saving grace is Shahrukh Khan and how he brings in shades to the everyman Surinder Sahni solely through his performance. The opening 15 minutes uptil the Haule Haule song was a nice, enjoyable munch as you see this awkwardly engaged couple (in what has to be the most unsubtly obvious way) try to share common space–its all played straight but SRK’s great fun on screen with his brand of physical comedy. And then, the bomb drops. A talent hunt reality show looking for the ultimate dancing couple lands in this small town and the husband goes for a makeover (i.e. trims his moustache, gels and streaks his hair, plus wears teeny-bopper casuals) which the wife doesn’t recognise. So a conflict is created out of thin air, and you try your hardest to suspend disbelief in the girl’s and the movie’s manipulative naivete. But how? There’s no character progression, the central bimbo’s asked to played straight and being a debutante she obliges and does little else (God, in that one guest appearance song when you see actresses like Preity and Kajol jiving you know exactly what’s amiss in today’s Bollywood-that screen-chewing raw appeal in actors that would make you gulp anything they mouth on screen),  it keeps on going in circles for some godawful 3 hours for no rhyme or reason and trust me, if I see one more Bollywood movie with Shiamak Davar brand of aerobics-choreography and bimbettes + dudes forever dressed in gym shorts and push-up bras, I will rip my clothes off. Its fcking enough already, and as for Adi, how dumb do you think we are? All the while I was thinking of some deep metaphor embedded somewhere in this grossly lookist and superficial drama, but its like looking at the drain–the deeper you dig, the more black sludge you scoop out. The subtext is atrocious and you even used “seeing God in people” (your version of trying to articulate something intangible behind instant chemistry between two people) as a pivot conflict resolutor in which the girl sits hands folded in Golden Temple and just because the hubby is walking in her direction (considering she’s come with him to the temple, isn’t that the most natural thing?) pat she goes–this is who I’ll spend the life with. Please get a life! Even the worst of stinkers courtesy of your banner have had 10 times more thought in them than this stillborn nonsensical pap. 

PS: I was just reading Khalid’s glowing review and this is something I pondered about-maybe there’s some huge metaphor in the conflict of the movie… about a common man trying hard to place himself in the fantasies of his wife… but its sorta undone by dialogue in a key scene where he says something on the lines of “my disguise and dance is for her to laugh with me, but to love me she gotta take me as I am” which is sorta conflicting considering dancing and laughing is what made the wife happy. The disguise as a leap of faith is difficult to take for the viewer because this tacky, chauvinistic, played-straight-with-an-S movie (for most parts) takes the route of a banal dance competition and doesn’t even pursue it properly (the disguised SRK is an irritating wannabe and the actor seems to have improvised on the sets recycling or pastiching his earlier goofy roles), so when the movie fails at a literal level, for me it fails on other planes too.”

 

Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye (Hindi)

“I have my issues with the casting of the leading man Abhay Deol as this decidedly well-sketched character of a petty-thief-turned-conman Lucky, but that aside the sincerity of the whole supporting ensemble in lending flesh and blood to already terrific characters make it a sheer delight. Paresh rawal, in particular, gives one of the best supporting performances I have seen in a triple role, signifying the destructive nature of fathers and godfathers that Lucky encountered in his life, and an auteur-in-the-making Dibakar Bannerjee remains as enthused and accurate with his nose and eyes to the Punjabi haven that is Delhi as he was in Khosla Ka Ghosla. Top all this with a raving mad and screamingly original soundtrack and crackling dialogue and you have a heady slice-of-life tragicomedy. 

Of course, given my weakness for good drama, the final act holds a special place as undertones of pathos in Lucky’s life when he aches to turn a new leaf and lead a straight man’s life come to the fore and the confrontations and character revelations this otherwise naive guy goes through in the process has a certain psychological correctness to them that very few film-makers can match. Plus how comfortably nuanced an Indian mindset is with corruption in general that its able to calibrate its morality as long as the individual’s ends are met is some subtext to add to an otherwise seemingly frothy comedy. So a thief like Lucky is a good man if he gets you the latest sandwich toaster for free or funds your husband’s new restaurant business. Yes, there’s the stock people-change-with-money fact of life which forms a good part of the fast changing scenery around Lucky but there are many more social dynamics, extremely subtle yet ten times as gnawing, and this otherwise-dressed-as-a-comedy is able to capture all that with flourish. Quite something! 

Pity then that the leading man’s stilted range (in his defence, he’s still finding his footsteps and is super-courageous in picking such edgy roles) sort of keeps the film’s energy and momentum a few amps down. The movie doesn’t really have a blast as its screams out to have and in that case it is sort of a missed oppurtunity, but the good thing is that Deol doesn’t ruin it in any way; he just isn’t skilled enough to bring that extra zing. Let’s call it his “underplay” which even though I am being generous and nice, I have to say one last time, doesn’t go with the frenetic energy of the movie. Ah well! This one’s still an indie gem worth watching once if only to catch the guy playing young Lucky and the initial half an hour which had me in such splits, I had to pop a Ibuprofen to stop my cheeks from hurting. No kidding!

Sorry Bhai (Hindi)

 

“Genial, easygoing, smooth dramedy exploring the forbidden love angle of a guy falling for his brother’s fiancee. Progressive by Bollywoood standards by a mile and a half, its also got the polish, subtlety and sensitivity of some European dramas, though this time Onir seems bent on keeping it frothier, and he doesn’t falter. Its crisp, youthful and has a palpable sense of genuine joie de vivre of a middle class family suddenly thrown in the vortex of this situation. All the key scenes deliver thanks to some good writing-especially the showdowns and the careful building of chemistry between the mom-in-law (Shabana Azmi) and the to-be daughter in law (Welcome back Chitrangada!). Everyone’s right up there acting wise, but Shabana and Boman’s chemistry as the couple is so winsome, they overshadow the young couples. The ultra-gorgeous Chitrangada is sometimes trying a bit too hard playing the damsel in distress but hits the right notes more often than not, ably supported by Sharman and Sanjay who perform with casual and lived-in sheen of seasoned performers, getting into the skin of characters with spectacular ease. Very well rounded with a somewhat dramatic denouenement that’s ironically a mix of uber-progressiveness and inexplicable retrogression by the anal mom (so we are supposed to gulp she agreed for a lifelong live-in relationship of Sharman-Chitrangada till she died, but not marriage), but all else’s well in what’s probably one of year’s most mature romcom.”