THE COMEDY OF TERRORS
A gangland-based action-comedy may be a minor movie, but it’s also major fun. Plus, a marital comedy that’s about as funny as a divorce.
AUG 16, 2009 – AS IF TO REAFFIRM THAT HE’S absolutely the best thing that happened to Gulzar after the passing of RD Burman, Vishal Bhardwaj weaves the master’s word-nuggets into wondrous tapestries of sound – but that isn’t all. He also pays homage to the Boss himself, with a glint in the eye and an evil grin to match. He stages a scene where a conman is roughed up to the strains of Do lafzon ki hai from The Great Gambler, except that it isn’t quite the sentimental opening lines that are employed. We hear, instead, a snatch from the middle – Is zindagi ke din kitne kam hain, and it’s as if we’re being asked to chuckle at the inevitability that the conman’s days are numbered. So too Yamma yamma from Shaan – the refrain Bas aaj ki raat hai zindagi is turned on its head and used to presage a sexual encounter during nighttime.
If you’re attuned to this sense of larky mayhem, Kaminey is a scream – a quasi-existential action-comedy that owes as much to the postmodern Tarantino oeuvre as the more classical gangland bloodbaths, all filtered through the plot mechanics of the Bollywood Masala and the nonchalant swagger of the Spaghetti Western. That sounds like a lot – and the film is a lot. Bhardwaj packs in so much into his two-odd hours, you could blink and miss the throwaway shot where a couple of corrupt cops are scurrying about with a guitar case in a hotel car park. (And you’ll be left scratching your head as to why the man who’s commandeered the police vehicle, where the guitar case now rests, is presently being saluted by cops at a roadblock.) We’re used to moviemakers who downsize the scope of their vision in order to reach down (and across) to the audience – but Bhardwaj will have none of that condescension. As with Maqbool and Omkara, he accords us respect, and we return the favour by viewing his film with not just our eyes and ears and heart but also our head.
With two weighty Shakespeare adaptations on his résumé, the director is ostensibly after something more fleeting this time, something more fun – and, intentionally or not, there’s a smattering of the mistaken-identity brouhaha of The Comedy of Errors. In what’s easily the best performance of his young career, Shahid Kapoor plays estranged identical twins – a vein-poppingly-muscled lisper named Charlie, and a shy stutterer named Guddu. The former is a small-time gambler who dreams of becoming a bookie, the latter works in an NGO and is saddled, somewhat unexpectedly, with impending fatherhood – and how their lives intersect, courtesy gangsters and policemen and drugs and even destiny, is the story hook we given to hold on to. What makes the film, however, isn’t how Charlie and Guddu retrace their way back to one another, but the manic milestones that dot their respective journeys.
Kaminey is almost exclusively a collection of cartoony set pieces, each of which functions at a stream-of-consciousness skit level that’s practically Monty Pythonesque – whether it’s Guddu launching into a singsong confession (the singing halts his stammering, see?), a trio of Bengali gangster-brothers fooling around with the faulty scope of a machine gun (affectionately called “AK-47 ki chacheri behen”), a couple of hoods playacting like little boys with toy guns (the weapons are real, but they’re wielded with fake “gunshot” noises), Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) losing her marbles and brandishing an automatic (all in the name of true love), Charlie prancing about in a towel to Duniya mein logon ko (the teeraa-para-para prelude of this RDB rouser from Apna Desh is perfectly reincarnated in the brassy arrangements of the chartbusting Dhan ta dan), or gangsters haggling with cops, at gunpoint, about how much of a cut of the ill-gotten gains each party should take home.
These riotously staged sketches are the reason the film works so well (most of the time), and also why it falters (every once in a while). Kaminey is best experienced as a minor movie with major, character-driven set pieces. (And what a set of characters they are, marvellously embodied by unfamiliar faces like Tenzing Nima, Chandan Roy Sanyal and Shiv Subrahmanyam.) But there are times you are left with the niggling feeling that Bhardwaj is attempting to inflate this minor material into a major movie. (He appears mildly sheepish of merely Hollywoodising the Bollywood Masala, what with the mismatched brothers on either side of the law.) Several of the over-elaborate conceits left me somewhat cold – like Charlie’s surreal dream visions of success (replete with an ethereally elegant beauty who looks like she’s wandered off the set of the Ascot race sequence from My Fair Lady), or the incessant attempts at twinning (two brothers, two railway flags, two uncut diamonds).
Some of the detailing is exquisitely thought out – and written out – but it also feels a bit much for this kind of a lark. At the beginning, Charlie muses that life’s a bitch (“Life badi kutti cheez hai”), and thereon we are deluged with a stream of canine metaphors, both visual and verbal. A gangster claims, “I like bitches,” and says he has little interest in the survival of a male employee who’s made to bark like a dog. A mongrel saunters into a scene where Guddu and Sweety are making up after a fight. And the gangster-boss (played with enormous ease by Amole Gupte) who’s referred to respectfully as Bhau, spits out, at one point, “Bhau… Bhau… bow-wow.” (Though, I must admit, I laughed loud at the utter lunacy of this latter moment.) Elsewhere, when Charlie is asked what he does, and when someone points to a sturdy bicep and comments that he’s a builder (as in, body builder), we’re asked to remember that Sweety too had connections with a builder (this time, a real builder, whose son she refuses to marry). Good Lord!
I would have preferred, instead, a few more free-association monologues of the kind where Guddu remembers his love for a girl from the sixth standard. (The speech is a beauty, and Shahid does wonders with it, imbuing the words with just the right amounts of shyness and sadness.) I also wished that the uncharacteristically sentimental (for this film, at any rate, with its too-cool-for-Bollywood DNA) “Indian” flashback – set to soaring strings that amplify the incident of the twins’ father turning out to be a thief (all that’s missing is the infamy of a tattoo along the lines of “Mera baap chor hai”) – had been axed in favour of more scenes with the brothers. Charlie, at times, is pushed towards being some sort of noir protagonist – with tentative excursions towards an existential dilemma, about getting screwed not by the path decided on but by the one discarded – but the character would have worked just as well if he’d simply been left alone, as just a studly screw-up trying to escape his circumstances.
But these nitpicky what-ifs, in no way, compromise the totality of Bhardwaj’s achievement, whose highlight is surely the empathy he lavishes on his characters, major or minor. Guddu, at first, is presented as a wimp leading life according to the diktats of a timetable, but pay attention to the campfire scene where he corrects Sweety’s utterance of “Bombay” to “Mumbai,” and you’ll see he has a hidden core of steel. (In front of Bhau, a die-hard “Jai Maharashtra” type, Guddu stubbornly says “Bombay,” even when the menacing thug insists on “Mumbai.” He’s making a point, and he’s making it in his characteristically low-key style.) And as Sweety, Priyanka shines in a beautifully conceived role that combines womanly wiles – she cons Guddu into marrying her through a sly mix of threats and tears – with manly reserves of strength. There’s no question about who wears the pants in this relationship – and Guddu himself would be the f-f-first to agree.
CRITICS ARE SOMETIMES ASKED IF their rapturous reaction to films from frontline directors is a result of their having to watch all the dreck that’s served up in between – and by way of response, I’ll offer this week’s other release, Rumy Jaffery’s Life Partner. Even if Kaminey hadn’t worked, you’d come away thrilled by the care with which it’s been shaped – the claustrophobic closeness of the cinematography, or the finely calibrated performance details that result in such wordless moments as the one where the leading lady’s tongue droops in approximation of death. A film like Kaminey makes you feel alive – while Life Partner makes you remember that you’re two-and-a-half hours closer to death. The director may argue that a broad comedy about marital squabbles (with Govinda, Fardeen Khan, Tusshar, Prachi Desai, and a screechy Genelia D’Souza) does not require precision or passionate filmmaking – but why would we seat ourselves beside potential carriers of swine flu for the kind of jokes even sitcom writers would grunt at?
Copyright ©2009 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Srikanth
August 15, 2009
Got to check Kaminey by the earliest.The only thing stopping me at present…The Bawra named Swine Flu!Hope Vishal Bharadwaj gives a spin to it in his next!
Jokes apart do give a listen to Daniel B George’s Quick Gun Murugan soundtrack.The movie’s directed by Shashanka Ghosh and the album’s a mighty good spoof on the ‘Madrasi heroes’ of yore.
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Srikanth
August 15, 2009
Corrigendum-
Quick Gun Murugan’s OST has been composed by Sagar Desai while Raghu Dixit has composed the title song.It seems the label,Sony Music in this case,has goofed up the credits.
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Pradyumna M
August 15, 2009
Simply loved the movie!Worth my 250 bucks! Already booked my tickets for a second time viewing! 😀
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Ankur
August 15, 2009
One of my friends really loved the movie while I just thought it was very well made – he could relate to it in some way I couldn’t. The good thing is that I knew going in that this could not go wrong, and it didn’t. I loved the climax, Guddu’s vulnerability, Bhope’s menace et al. I thought the surreal bits didn’t gel in too well with the fast paced thriller that Kaminey was.
I think Priyanka did an excellent job. Or maybe, I was pleasantly surprised after watching too many wooden beauty queens.
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Aditya Pant
August 15, 2009
As you rightly say, the film is a lot! But the one stnd-out moment fior me in this film was the scene where Guddu talks about his childhood love. The speech is an absolute beauty, with touches that can only come from someone with a modest middle-class background. I was completely sold on the scene when he started talking about “champak” and “nandan”.
The other scene I thoroughly enjoyed for its dialogue was the pre-lovemaking scene where a drunken Sweety talks about loving Guddu more than any city…not just any city, but cities with changed names. 🙂
…And talking of deliberate smartness, what did you think of “….aur meri ‘coke’ ujadega?” It didn’t work for me, but it did for many I know. Or that Sweety’s brother is….well, diabetic. 🙂
In my opinion, Kaminey is easily the best Hindi Hindi Film this year thus far, and it would be a huge achievement for any of the remaining releases of the year to better it.
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Pearls
August 15, 2009
Very nice review. I liked the movie a lot though I was a little disappointed plot vise but I think that is because I made the mistake of skimming a few reviews.
You said
“Kaminey is best experienced as a minor movie with major, character-driven set pieces.” And I have to agree.
The Shahid six class story was also one of my favourite scenes in the movie
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Srinivas
August 15, 2009
It was honestly underwhelming and am glad to see that your review is somewhat along those lines. The others were making it sound like some masterpiece. Too many things going on at the same time. Vishal loses his grip though. But lots and lots of superb touches throughout. Like “Apna Haath Jagannath” on the door of Guddu’s hostel toilet..LOL..
And I am on the fence regarding Shahid’s performance here. Also all that lisping for Guddu goes for a toes when he breaks into “Dhan Te Nan”!!! Or does lisping also go with singing? 😉
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Manish Parikh
August 15, 2009
I really enjoyed the movie. It is one smart movie coming from Bollywood. Like Brangan , I thought the flashback was too contrived.
@Srinivas The song ‘Dhan Te Dhan’ is playing in the pub. Charlie is just lip synicing to the song.
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shamoni8
August 15, 2009
do u completely like anything that’s not A.R. Rahman or Tamil? sheesh, its impossible to please u man. i disagree strongly with the review of kaminey. i didn’t there were many loopholes or plotholes or whatever the fuck holes u brought out in them. most of your reviews are on the money, but this movie was exquisite.
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Sumana
August 15, 2009
“A film like Kaminey makes you feel alive – while Life Partner makes you remember that you’re two-and-a-half hours closer to death.” Respect!
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Just Another Film Buff
August 15, 2009
Mr. Rangan,
I love the way you dispassionately and often diplomatically put forth your points.
This one never once worked for me. Trying to bite too much from too many things. Well, It seems that I’m in the minority report for this film…
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Aditya Pant
August 15, 2009
Shamoni, “do u completely like anything that’s not A.R. Rahman or Tamil?” Wow, where does that come from? Especially when BR has been accused of being ‘unfair’ to Tamil films. And as far as I know Dev D or Kaminey soundtrack don’t have ARR associated with them even remotely. And, Yuvraaj and Adaa were all ARR….you know what I’m implying here.
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Ramesh
August 15, 2009
Exquisite detailing is a phrase i patented in my quick gun murugan review. use but attribute.
Youre just being kind to the big guy because you share a name.
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sputnik
August 16, 2009
Excellent review and its more of an observation/analysis of the characters, their behaviors and intentions.
I personally felt the movie had great performances, great cinematography, great music and looked like a hollywood movie but it still lacked that Indian soul. Wish there was a bit more of love story between Guddu and Sweety. The Shahid six class story was definitely good. The backup story should have been much more powerful and does not explain why they would hate each other. May be it should have shown Charlie always had an addiction for gambling and losing all the money. It does remind you of the Deewar story.
Srinivas,
This reviewer here mentions that Charlie’s lisp goes for a toss in the Dhan-Te-Dhan song and even the singer’s voices swap from one character to another. Now Charlie does sing “fpiderman fpiderman” so it cant be that his lisp goes for a toss when singing.
http://www.tanqeed.com/movies/kaminey.cfm
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brangan
August 16, 2009
Aditya Pant: Yeah, that “coke” ujadega line didn’t work for me either — too clever by half. That diabetes scene too didn’t work for me. I mean, Guddu is giving all this gyaan about being the sugar in the milk, and the subsequent segue to the “sugar” in Bhau’s blood was a bit awkward. Somehow, I felt VB’s dialogues here, though certainly sharp and fun, weren’t as remarkable as in his earlier outings. There were some really cheesy lines, like the (rhyming) one by Lele who says “You two.” (After Guddu and Sweety have been doing tee-too-tee-too, about whether they’ll have a Chhotu or Chhoti.)
Srinivas: And the cutout below the “Apna Haath Jagannath” scribble? Why, Mallika Sherawat of course 🙂
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Ramesh
August 16, 2009
@ bharadwaj jr Sitting here in America and having seen diabetic natives of a certain kind, the metaphor made perfect sense. The dude’s body could not digest sugar, literally and metaphrically, which made him sick, literally and metaphorically,His condition is currently uncurable and he suffers it the most.
The smat alecky commen was thus the one good metaphor in the film.
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Alpesh
August 16, 2009
i saw kaminey earlier today, and i am left sort of bemused.
everything about the film is good, direction, music, acting, dialogues.
BUT i still ended up leaving the cinema with a hollow feeling, the feeling akin to disappointment, that the film could have been so much more.
The only explanation i can offer myself for feeling this way is that i did not have any empathy for the characters, there wasnt a sense for me to will the protaganists on. Although this isnt a requirement for me, there are certain types of film where this empathy is neccessary.
I also question the pace of the film. A film like this is, as you said, is Tarantino-esque (although I think VB was aiming for a Guy Ritchie-esque) and these films appeared to be quick, they had detail which were alluded to but not neccessarily explain. I think VB got too bogged in the detail, which makes me wonder whether the execution was off, because we have seen it work in a film like Rang De Basanti.
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Aditya Pant
August 16, 2009
sputnik: see Manish’s comment @8 above. That explains the disappearance of the lisp and swapping singing voices in Dhan Te Nan.
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Shashikant
August 16, 2009
There are lots of good reviews by good critics. But, you stand out so convincingly – just like Vishal Bharadwaj.
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Vivek
August 16, 2009
Nice review.
The movie was blazing fast. I couldn’t stop to work out the “coke” joke either.
Have been wondering if VB’s attempt to break away from regular heavy-duty films is comparable to Mani Rathnam’s with Thiruda Thiruda. Unlike TT though, Kaminey can be added to the director’s resume.
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Vishakha
August 16, 2009
At the halfway mark, I was thinking – wow, what a movie! Really breakneck pace, gripping. But the second half let me down, especially after the brilliant beginning.
I completely agree that the flashback with the father’s death was extremely contrived. There was no substantial reason for the two to get estranged – it’s not like Charlie lost the money and hence could not reach in time or something… but then, there wasn’t even a reason for the father to have stolen the watch, so….
I would have preferred it if the three of them would have gotten together at the exchange scene – that could have been fun…
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Nirmal
August 16, 2009
Phew.. I have to admit i had to make 3 readings and some forays into wiki and webster’s to get (i think) almost all the finer points in your review….
i agree completely with your observation”kaminey is almost exclusively a collection of cartoony ” set pieces..
One request , though – please dont ever “presage” a sexual encounter again. 🙂
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Adithya
August 16, 2009
I found more Guy Ritchie than Tarantino all around. The chase, the sudden cut aways that make you go, “err where are we” and a few seconds later you figure it all out. I found the pace slacking a bit before and after the title track but then the climax was such a high point, I didn’t think of that drag I felt in the second half. But the million dollar question you asked in your Omkara review(right?) still holds:
“Where the hell did Vishal Bharadwaj learn to make films like these?”
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Srinivas
August 16, 2009
I may be wrong – but from what I remember Charlie was not just lip-syncing the song. Charlie and Mikhail were definitely singing the song. And Mikhail – that was another stereotype – only half done
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Aditya Vikram
August 16, 2009
I saw the film after reading your review. Generally your reviews make more sense after watching the film. It is easy to agree with most of your points which I can say after having been through two hours of Kaminaapan. I had a lot of expectations before entering the cinema hall which had also been fueled by its brilliant songs.
After the film passed off in a haze I was slightly discontented by the incomplete usage of songs. So many good songs, so little utilization. This led me to compare Vishal Bhardwaj with his contemporary like Anurag Kashyap who magnificently moulded each song in Dev D. to support the context. This does not mean that Kaminey doesn’t respect the music in it. Their timing was good, but their arrival would impede the flow of the film rather than add to it. Also, apart from Dhan ta na, no other song made any significant contribution to the momentum of the narrative.
In the end, it turned out to be a well-thought-out commercial film which is what Vishal Bhardwaj set out to do in the first place. Nevertheless, there was style and inspiration written all over it.
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chhote saab
August 16, 2009
I loved the movie, though it does leave you dizzy with its jerky but brilliant camerawork. I thought that just being able to tie all the different plots together convincingly was an achievement in itself. Bade saab, my question is do you consider ‘Pulp Fiction’ a minor film with major treatment or is it a major film? and why (either ways). Though all the actors were really good, Amol Gupte was brilliant and , as you very rightly put it, effortless as Bhopebhau. I would be looking forward to VB’s next, whenever that is.
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brangan
August 16, 2009
Alpesh/Adithya: Reg “although I think VB was aiming for a Guy Ritchie-esque” – I’m curious, why do you say that? I can’t say I’ve seen all of GR’s film’s but the tone of the dialogues and the “cartoon slapstick” of the violent set pieces — all seemed an homage to “Pulp Fiction.” Even the image of Sweety with the gun seemed to go back to Amanda Plummer in the restaurant at the beginning.
Vivek: Reg. “Unlike TT though, Kaminey can be added to the director’s resume.” LOL. That film was such an embarrassment, no? And that again leads me to wonder if there’s anyone else today who’s pulled off good-to-great movies in so many genres — children’s films, dramas, and now action-comedy.
Nirmal: Ah, but are you presaging a response along those lines? 🙂
chhote: IMO what makes a film major or minor is not the subject (or whatever) but simply how it all comes together. It’s very easy to see “Pulp Fiction” (and “Jackie Brown”) as a major film (even though the material can be considered “minor;” there’s barely a thread of a plot) because of the number of rules it broke and because how effortless it seems even today. There’s a resonance to the film, the way it plays out — unlike here, where the strain shows in quite a few places (especially in the dream sequences and in the flashback). It was easier for me to view this as a lark with major set pieces. In “Pulp Fiction” the set pieces merged in an awesome manner, as in the whole was greater than the sum of the awesome parts. Here, I enjoyed the parts more on a piece-by-piece basis; the whole was less.
On the other hand, “Kill Bill 1 & 2” would be, IMO, “minor” movies made of major set pieces. It’s all just a lark in tone (though, come to think of it, there *is* a lot of resonance to the films in parts, like Bill making a sandwich for the kid, or the Bride telling the kid to come back for her in a few years if she’s still feeling raw; and this is positioned opposite Lucy Liu, another kid whose mother was killed in cold blood) — and yet, the dialogues, the genre homages, the music, the staging, everything comes together so magnificently. For my money, if QT never made another film in his life, his place in the pantheon is assured. (And before you ask me, there’s place in the pantheon as much for a QT as there is for, say, a Bresson. It takes all kinds.)
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chhote saab
August 16, 2009
“the whole was greater than the sum of the awesome parts” – That explains it very well. BTW, it seems Saif was offered the main role but he refused – I’m not sure how he would have fared. Also, is this the first hindi film of pulp genre or are there any other? How about “Is raat ki subah nahin” and “Waisa bhi hota hain? or even “Mithya”? BTW, how does it compare to “Mithya”, your last year’s best movie pick?
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Manish
August 16, 2009
Did some research on the web and this is what VB had to say about the song:
“Yes, we decided to capture the spontaneity that we saw in Kallu mama and Kudi mere sapne mein milti hai. However, I wanted one signature step from Ahmed. The move was like the fight scene between the hero and villain, straight out of the 1970s and 1980s. It involves punching the air and I loved it. The song has a retro feel and has been picturised in a pub where Shahid and Chandan lip-sync the song being played in the background.”
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Vivek
August 16, 2009
Its tough to find a parallel to VB. Soderbergh with SLV, Traffic and Oceans comes to mind.
LOL (nee RGV)? I dunno how Kshana Kshanam is these days but I had liked it when I was in school. Add Satya and quite a large portion of Rangeela, Bhoot and Kaun… he was alright for a while.
Santosh Sivan, maybe? Can’t comment as I’ve seen only Asoka, and that doesn’t count.
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bart
August 16, 2009
Absolutely delightful movie. Unapolegetic use of so many languages(bengali, hindi, english, african, marathi), ability to pause for a slow poetic scene in the midst of the action (guddu’s champak moment), retro music and let loose characters – absolute refreshing combo.
Still, doesn’t seem cut out for the mainstream. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Govinda and partners do better.
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anon
August 17, 2009
I was massively disappointed in this movie. Clear case of the whole not being better than the sum of its parts. Too much cheese and the narrative was just too disjointed. The editing did not help in pulling it together and visually it did not lend itself to easy viewing( although I admit it was a very consistent visual style throughout ). Of course there were little scenes which were gems and the acting was great( def shahid’s best wrok) but overall I did not care enough about what happened to the characters by the end. I just wanted the movie to end godammnit! Word of mouth after the movie was pretty negative and this was in a boston suburb. Wonder how its doing in the multiplexes in India?
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Srinivas
August 17, 2009
@Manish – Maan gaye guru 😉
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vijay
August 17, 2009
BR, I have often felt that the non-linear narrative in Pulp fiction was little more than a gimmick. Did you think it had a bigger purpose?
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shamoni8
August 17, 2009
yeah, i was a little rubbish in the earlier response. its just that i’m real disappointed that you didn’t like it, whole and soul.
what i really disliked was u trying to believe that it was a small movie trying to be big. what’s up with that? that was real weird to me.
imo, the best review you’ve done is namaste london. the way u described it sold me, cos i didn’t like the movie at all, but never could figure what was wrong about it.
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shamoni8
August 17, 2009
also, do a review of drag me to hell. wanna know what u thought of it.
but please, don’t post any of the plot. i know u don’t, but i’m shit scared right now man lol
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Alpesh
August 17, 2009
BR “I’m curious, why do you say that? I can’t say I’ve seen all of GR’s film’s but the tone of the dialogues and the “cartoon slapstick” of the violent set pieces — all seemed an homage to “Pulp Fiction.””
I would say the the story is more homage to a GR film… a bunch of misfits come across something valuable by luck but also get tangled up in a complex world…..this seems more like something along the lines of Lock Stock… and Snatch.
And VB had also stated in an interview also that those two GR films were an inspiration
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pratik harivyasi
August 17, 2009
awesome movie after gajani ,i think shahid will be the next srk.
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SS
August 17, 2009
I really agree with the whole was lesser than the sum of parts… And the parts were fantastic, loved the RDB connection.. I kept wondering who else might be a good replacement for Shahid even though he has done a good job…. I think his father is way better. I loved Maqbool & The Blue Umbrella….
I just wanted to add a funny thought that I had for abt 5 mins – starting from the song about AIDS (which I could not believe), I thot that Sweety had AIDS and and that Guddu was horrifed that she might have transferred it to him….
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Nirmal
August 17, 2009
@SSS: i had the exact same thought.. Actually seeing some of the trailers going into the film, i had a thought she was sex worker of sorts and shahid still falls in love with her..now that may be what you call far fetched.:)
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Nirmal
August 17, 2009
@BR:.:) not exactly..
@Pratik: gajini nd kaminey in the same stable.? If VB were in a grave., if would have been Rockn’roll’a ing.:)
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Aman
August 18, 2009
I agree with Alpesh that the movie seems closer to GR’s movies than QT’s.. in addition to the points raised by him, the climax wherein different set of gangsters all arrive and end up killing each other reminded me a similar scene (albeit in a different setting) in Lock Stock… As for Sweety grabbing an automatic and shooting around almost at random running out of bullets in the process and not deriving any tactical advantage, it reminded me of the doped girl in lock stock who gets hold of the automatic and fires all the bullets..
Overall, i felt a little disappointed with the movie as I felt with Snatch initially (though now it’s an all time fav).. perhaps a second watch would help..
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Rags B
August 18, 2009
BR, I like the way you say “Kaminey is almost exclusively a collection of cartoony set pieces……..”. That was my initial thought on the screenplay. With all its brilliant camera work and efficient background score, not to forget Shahid’s classic performance, I still believe there were moments (as you have also pointed out) that put things out of sorts which you dont want in a caper. All of which makes it only an ‘effort” to pay respect to Tarentinoesque style movie making (most of the scenes are sketched in a similar fashion). This avoids the film from being called genius. I enjoyed the ride though!
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Rahul
August 18, 2009
Aman please, be considerate.If you have to discuss specific story points,indicate in the beginning that your post is going to have spoilers.
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Amrita
August 18, 2009
I don’t know about Alpesh and Adithya, and I don’t know if VB’s shading was intentional, but I agree this was more in Ritchie’s ouevre than Tarantino’s. Why? I don’t have a good explanation – I suspect I won’t have a good explanation for any part of this movie until I’ve seen it once or three times more – but what struck me immediately was the feel of it.
Tarantino’s movies always have a hyper-reality to them. Maybe its the palettes he chooses for his films but he creates an atmosphere where you look at the violence and its like you’re reading a graphic novel. Sometimes this is intensely clear, like in the Kill Bill movies, but in movies like Pulp Fiction, its more subtle. A lot of people talk about the cartoonish quality of the action in his movies but that’s not the word for it – its all serious business, but you get the feeling its 2-D action in a 3-D world. Perhaps its because he owns his characters so much that he keeps them imprisoned, separate from us.
Ritchie on the other hand situates his movies in a world that looks a lot more gritty and real even when the characters themselves are behaving quite cartoonish-ly. And *all* of them are fricking cartoons. It’s one of the reasons why I think Swept Away sucked so much – both characters were such toons, his dream sequences on the yacht where he fantasized about throwing her overboard were the most real thing about it. But when they were stuck on that island, it focused attention directly on the characters and their interaction instead of giving them a context to which they could play. They weren’t empathetic to begin with and then they just stopped being funny. CRIME!
What impresses me about VB though is that in his three movies about the mafia, each of them have been so vastly different. All his movies are, of course. But its especially impressive when a director writes three movies in the same genre and finds new fields to mine each time, esp when its a genre thats been done to death. And even though I’ve spent a number of words above on how this closely resembles the work of this director or that, I have to say VB’s work is always uniquely his own whatever his influences because his work is so unapologetically nativist (in a good way, not a Bhope Bhau kind of way).
And I hear you and the others about the forced banter. I didn’t pay as much attention to it as you did (shame!) but that bit when Tashi is on the boat and talks about bitches was just ridiculously forced when the scene was carrying itself so well.
Ok, mini-blogging done for the day.
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Tejas
August 19, 2009
I am so badly waiting for a dialogue driven movie instead of an event driven movie! Is anyone even listening!?
(That’s your QT vs GR difference wrt VB movie right there.)
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arun verma
August 19, 2009
Kaminey, to draw a comparison is VBs gulaal…both are very dense..waiting for his devD
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Tejas
August 19, 2009
Oops..I wanted to say a conversation-driven, not dialogue driven..well but what’s the difference for Hindi film makers!
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brangan
August 20, 2009
chhote: Well, there was “Ek Chalis ki Last Local.” I re-read my review and saw that I’d called it a larky scream as well 🙂 And I’m not getting into “Mithya” comparisons because one’s an American apple, the other’s a European orange.
vijay: Not at all. Beginning with the end instills a sense of pulp-destiny and redemption to a story (especially with the Bible-quoting Jackson character) that would have otherwise ended with the death of Travolta (who’s one of the “leads” in a sense). And besides, if it were a “serious” story, such a narration may be seen as a gimmick. But unlike something like “Memento,” (where the non-linearity had a readily identifiable narrative purpose), the purpose here is on a more “meta” level as this isn’t about a “story” at all. (You can comfortably axe the Bruce Willis interlude and still be left with a valid gangster film.) But as this is about attitude and feel and genre-homage, the splitting of the restaurant scene into a prologue and an epilogue — in a film that’s itself divided into chapters, like “fiction” — works very well and very organically IMO.
shamoni8: “Namastey London?” Seriously? Of all my reviews? I learn something new every day 🙂
Tejas: This *was* dialogue-driven — the mild existential flavour and such was present only in the lines. Why do you think otherwise? Think of this film as just action set pieces without the lines and what have you got left? 🙂
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shamoni8
August 21, 2009
dude, the thing is i’m not a deep delver in to the making of movies, i’m just a bit ahead of the average kambakkhtishq lovers. namaste didn’t connect with me, and i didn’t know why, but your review explained it well. i’ve agreed with many reviews, but most of them are so layered, that i’d have to watch the movie like thrice before i connect with them on that level. so yeah.
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Shankar
August 21, 2009
Baddy, have you watched Kandasamy? How is it?
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Kartik
August 22, 2009
Hey the ending fight sequences had Guy Ritchie written all over it… The Charlie dream bits are inspired by Brazil, but in the latter, those sequences actually work better because you empathize better with the protagonist.
Also I find Dhan Te Nan sounds a l]bit like Misirlou(Pulp Fiction theme song). Unintentional QT homage? 🙂
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brangan
August 22, 2009
Shankar: Not yet. Saw “Pokkisham” though 🙂
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kamil
August 22, 2009
Rangan…is pokkisham a pokkisham? And kandasamy comments soon?
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Shankar
August 22, 2009
Baddy, looking at initial promos and storyline, Kandasamy seems as if it’s set to display Susi’s “Shankar” avatar!! 🙂
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Mariya
August 24, 2009
OMG! I simply couldn’t get enough of Kaminey. It is by far the most intelligent movie of the year. It’s good to know that worthwhile commercial cinema is not a thing of the past
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Charlie
August 25, 2009
The ending (and overall plot structure of lovers getting caught up in events revolving around a stash of cocaine) has Tarantino written all over it. See True Romance, which released before anything Guy Ritchie made. The grittier urban atmosphere–with voiceover–is definitely moreso shades of Ritchie and other UK works.
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amit
August 29, 2009
Kaminey Exclusive Content http://www.bollyreporter.com/kaminey.html
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Shashi
September 4, 2009
Kaminey is best experienced as a minor movie with major, character-driven set pieces.
You can’t get any more accurate than that.
While the movie is brilliant in almost all fronts, the experience in totality is little underwhemlming. Especially when you know this man has given you a Maqbool.
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Mohit
September 12, 2012
I just happened to catch this on DVD, I know it’s been ages since its release, and loved it quite a bit. What I want to is, what’s a ‘minor movie’?
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