~*Fimply Fuperb*~

Year 2009 can be described as year of debacle for Bollywood. Year started with a bumper flop CC2C and the trend was continued by disastrous Victory, ruinous Billu Barber, unfortunate Delhi-6 (inspite of good songs and relatively new story) and supernatural 8x10 Tasveer which all has huge expectations, star power and price tags. Thankfully Bhatt’s Raaz-TMC, Farhan’s Luck by Chance along with Kashyap’s cult hit Dev-D saved the grace in first quarter and then 99 and New York saved the grace in second quarter along with Kambakkht Ishq (which was again a horrible one). The third quarter started off with a very promising LAK and has various other interesting films in its kitty as Kaminey, Dil bole haddipa, Jail and Whats ur rashi?

Among all, my favorites are Dev D and Gulaal, which came out of the dark and forced me to setback in my seat and literally pounced on me. And I felt the same thing when I watched the first trailer of Kaminey while watching Delhi-6.

Vishal Bhardwaj is famous as a path-breaking director from his first movie Makdee, followed by Maqbool (adapted from Macbeth), The Blue Umbrella (based on Ruskin Bond’s story), Omkara (adaptation of Othello) and then the aids awareness movie Blood Brothers.

Through Maqbool, Bhardwaj gave an authentic representation of 1990s scenario of Indian crime world and lust, The blue umbrella gave glimpse of a child mentality and sheer spirit of humanity, Omkara gave idea of the politics in western UP and lust for power, where as Blood Brothers was an AIDS awareness movie and now he is back with dark and gloomy comedy Kaminey.

Plot: The plot of Kaminey revolves around twins Charlie & Guddu. Charlie, the bad guy works a bookie with his friend Mikhail and his two brothers (Bengali Brothers) and lisps (using F at place of S) and believes that life has two options, one shortcut and second Chota shortcut and he had a dream of opening his own bookie counter where as Guddu, the good one trips over his tongue and works in a NGO spreasinfg awareness about AIDS.

Though they are twins but nature wise they are different (Wo chalta hai, main bhagta hun:- as Charlie says) and cant stand the sight of one another. But at one eventful day they came across each other when Guddu decided to marry his love Sweety, sister of Marathi don Bhope and Charlie got mixed up in fixed narcotic deal of Taashi to get rich using Chota shortcut. Now both get involved in the world of coke, politics, corruption, money and guns. Soon they realized that though they hate each other but all they have is each other and then they fight with their fate, gangsters, politicians and corrupted cops to protect themselves and their dreams over a period of 24 hr.

Will they survive the Indian politics and corruption?
Will Charlie be able to get his own bookie house?
Will Guddu be able to live happily with Sweety?
To know all these go and grab your tickets of Kaminey.

Direction: In true sense, Kaminey is Bhardwaj’s story which is totally bold, hilarious in all respects. Be it witty one liners (As Bhope saying Hamare Ghode (pistol triggers) bhagte nahin Girate hain or Agar teen bhai hoge to kya hamari mooch ukhad loge And Charlie replying to Guddu To kya tu meri cokh ujadega haan!! when he said that he want money to save pregnant Priyanka) or sarcasm on politicians (Bhope and his people hating people from other states and Guddu asks Bhope, tu sweety ko 10 khoke me mujhe bechde) and police (while encounter discussing about Hissa up to 33%, Lobo asking Guddu to give a police statement through song), austere at times and totally unpredictable.

He brilliantly captured and metamorphically displayed the human emotions ranging from love to lust to hunger of power and money. I still remeber the enterance of Priyanka Chopra and the song Phatak playing in the background with lines ye naiya doobe na and when she tells Guddu, Naiya doob gaye.

Be attentive for first 30 minutes to figure out minute details where the complex relationships were being discussed in Charli’F voice (yeah even the narration is in lisp) and after that the movie will take you with its flow and its unpredictability (so you have to put certain pieces by your own) and movie unfurls using fast cuts from shaky cameras against a murky and menacing screenplay. Hats off…

Acting: Besides Bhardwaj, this movie belongs to Shahid Kapoor, who enacted one of the toughest roles in the present time (thanks God, he is out of SRK’s shadow). As stammering Guddu, he displayed character of a boy-next-door who planned to finish his diploma in 2007->job in 2008->tarraki (promotion) in 2010-> marriage in 2014 and still remembers his middle-school love who use to stammer behind his back to make fun of him, but things got out of his hand when he had to marry Sweety and that brings him face-to-face with his brother Charlie and the dark gleam world of cops, politics and guns.

As rough, mucky, rugged and lisping Charlie, he displayed the role of a guy for whom money is everything and for that he is going to do anything but still he accuse himself for his fathers death due to shortage of money and that’s made him rebellion. He hate not only his brother (teen faal fe fakal bhi nahin dekhi ufki) cos he thinks that he is too fweet for this harami world but hates the whole Harami world. He deserves a standing ovation for this role

Priyanka Chopra did a decent job in role of chatterbox Marathi Mulgi Sweety who is deeply in love with Guddu and ready to do anything for him (from holding legs of Inspector Lobo when Guddu was in lockup to holding gun on his brother to save Guddu's life). All her nakhras and dialogues suited the role she was playing (be it Main home science ki topper hun or where she declares she loves Guddu more than Mumbai, Chennai, Thiruvanthapuram or to kya maine tumhara rape kiya hai?).

Amol Gupte as Sunil Shekhar Bhope aka Bhope Bhau can be called as the finding of the movie and he brilliantly displayed the character of a shrewd Marathi politician who hates people from other states, thinks that Mumbai was never Bombay and is ready to do anything for money (even to sell his ideology). His character showed all the shades of human nature, Funny (Mikhail introducing himself to Bhope by calling himself Tope Bhau and both playing with Guns in hand Dichkau, Dichkaun, Phatak, Thayan) and Shrewed (asking his aide to kill Guddu after getting Guitar and Paying the small boy to not tell the truth and offering money to police to stop shooting at them).

Tenzing Nima as Tashi (who love bitches more than dogs), did a great job in the role of gangster who owns police as well as cops from Narco department and dying hard to get his coke assignment worth 10 carore, back. The way he slaps his aide's face whicle looking for the marks on his cheeks was amazing and at the times he was funny too as telling Bhope, Bhau topein hamare paas bhi hain to kya chala de?? We are not America.

Shiv Subrahmanyam and Hrishikesh Joshi as corrupted cops Lobo and Lele, were awesome. They perfectly displayed the character of the one who messed up his work and then forced hard to make it correct. Theier chemsitry was great (speacially Bhaiya, aap mahan ho sequence while interrogating Guddu)

Chandan Roy Sanyal as Charlie's impulsive coke-lover gangster buddy Mikahil was were simply amazing. Mikhail simply sets the screen on fire when he lurch in on the some gangsters, high on coke and impulsive as a broken wheel. Watch him when he was racing with Charlie and Fpiderman Dance performed by them and his interaction with Bhope bhau and their Gun game. He will be on my must watch list now.

Others:

Cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain is stylish and according to the mood of the movie, covering the darker side of human emotions with fast cuts using handheld camera. Screenplay and dialogues are awesome and clearly marked the difference between twins. I am not going to explain it here watch the movie (but do remember Fpiderman sequence along with kaife kaife paife paife).

Music is another plus point for the movie and songs were at right place. Be it Go Charlie Go (during the coke heist when Charlie was on run), or Dhan-te-naan (Clebrating 10 khokha) or Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai (at the end of movie) and yeah how can I forget the climax song Hai Jo Zindagi Ka Phanda Hai Jo Katana Nahi (watch it).

The background score was bleak and humors at time use of old songs as "Duniya mein logon ko" to describe the situations was a refreshing attempt and it suited the movie (try to catch S/F lisp in tracks).

My take: First thing first, this movie is not a normal chick Bollywood movie but it is a dark humor that gonna leave you dazed and stimulated through it cheeky twist and turn and unpredictability. The subject of the movie is unique (not like Comedy of error sort of movie using twins) and converting it into a masterpiece was a difficult job to do but Bhardwaj vigilantly scanned each and every aspect to make it happened.

After watching one is not going to overlook the droll and austere dialogues and the lingo uFed in the movie and they are sure gonna carry it back with them. This movie totally relies on its actors, most of them are untried faces (Nima, Shiv Subrahmanyam, Hrishikesh, chandan Roy sanyal: have you ever heard of them before?? Nahhhhhh!!!), but still they deserve standing ovation). I will give it 4 and ½ stars.

!!!~*~*~*~*Dhan-Te-Naan!!!!!!Welcome to the new Dark and Bleak Bollywood. *~*~*~*~!!!