Dhann-Tanaa-Tanaa

Fpiderman Fpiderman

Take a bow Manmohan desai, Vishal Bharadwaj is in the house.

After a couple of superb India-esque adaptations of Shakespeare classics, Bharadwaj's latest offering pays tribute to the 70-80s mad-caper-fultu-commercial-formula driven bollywood pot-boiler (the likes of Don, Amar akbar anthony, Sita aur geeta, Namak Halal) and manages to come with a recipe that atleast in someways reminds you of the great gangster mad-capers of the late 90s-early millenium (lock-stock, layercake, snatch, Pfiction).

While the madness/energy/entropy diven whatever can go wrong will go wrong logic is not quite at the same level, as say that of a Lock- Stock (I might be biased here btw as Lock-Stock remains my favourite movie of this genre), but it would suffice to say that Bharadwaj does a darn good job, atleast 80% of the time.

Quirky and eccentric characters, that are kind of a mainstay for this genre, are beautifully set-up and available in plenty.

Chandan Roy Sanyal as the coke snorting, perenially high, supra-unpredictable, and as Charlie says "Mental hai Faala", youngest brother of a Bengali Don trio is the show-stopper of Kaminey. Its a shame he didnt get a bit more screen-time and a bigger shame that the obvious love-angle between him and Charlie that had so much potential was underplayed later on. Hell, Charlie even married a girl in the happy-ending climax, though he did name his bookie-shop after his one true love Michael.

But the one character that kind of lacked the eccentricity/quirkiness and sometimes felt a bit dull and what I think is surely the biggest sore-point/let down of the movie is that of the pivotal Bhope-bhau character, the jai-maharashtra mouthing marathi-manoos don. This one had so much potential, but Bharadwaj didnt quite rope this one in nicely. For example the scene where Bhope bhau and Michael play a fake wooshka-wooshka gunfight, while Michael is superb, Bhope-bhau seems a tard mundane. I liked the character of his right hand man/brother-in-law much better, the one who loathes at the frequent threat of his mother will be fu*cked (teri maa ki *****) if he botches the job, from Bhope bhau.

Another let-down was the climax, Bharadwaj needed to up the antes a fair bit more than what he ultimately settled for.

Both PC and Shahid were pretty good, PC more so, as the pregnant marathi girlfriend.

All in all, Kaminey is a "good" movie in my book, it came close to being on the great list and had the potential of being a Tarantino-eqsue love-fest (the one in which I develop a supreme man-crush and start touting bummers like Grindhouse as masterpieces), but unfortunately Bharadwaj showed a little bit more restraint than he should have. He held himself back, that teeny tiny bit more and that in the end made all the difference.

Greatest scene : Charlie and Michael, holding hands and singing "Fpiderman fpiderman" in the rains.


Chota Fortcut