Kaminey

I thought the movie was good. Quite good, but I do feel critics got slightly carried away in their reviews. I don’t blame them though, given that there hasn’t been a single decent Hindi movie out all of this year.

I won’t get into the plot but I’ll tell you what I liked about the movie…

The realism. Charlie is a small-time crook & that’s what he’s depicted as throughout the movie. He’s never glorified just b/c he is Shahid Kapoor, the hero of the movie, and the Indian audience likes their heroes & heroines to be glorified. Remember the scene where Charlie goes back to his house to get the guitar so he & Mikhail can sell it to the Bangla gangster brothers (right before the face-off between Bhope & Mikhail)? You expect Charlie to be the brave invincible hero who’d give two hoots about Bhope. Instead you’re presented with a Charlie who is timid, maybe even a little scared in front of Bhope, a much bigger crook vis-a-vis Charlie himself. Similarly, Sweety is not a goody-two shoes heroine. She’s fully capable of conning her boyfriend into marrying her. Remember the scene where Guddu agrees to marry her & immediately she gets a call from the priest who would be presiding over the marriage, whom she has already spoken to & made all arrangements? Brilliant! She’s also doesn’t hesitate before lying to her boyfriend, and she’s no shy bride either!

The Bong gangsters – Hallelujah! The Bong gangsters were an innovative concept. Do you remember having seen a movie with a Bong gangster or even a Bong villain in it? I certainly don’t. We’ve had plenty of Maharashtrian & South Indian gangsters but never a Bong gangster!
Loved the fact that Vishal Bharadwaj didn’t feel the need to add subtitles where the dialogues are not in Hindi…dialogues by the Bangla brothers, the drug dealers, Priyanka Chopra’s dialogues in Marathi etc. The audience is left to fend for themselves, and while we may not have understood each & every word, we were able get the gist of the whole thing. That’s showing some respect for the audience’s intellect - an alien concept for Bollywood.

It was great to see a movie where no single character dominated. There was surprisingly not much of Priyanka Chopra (I’m wondering whether she’ll be nominated for an award in the Best Actress category at all). 'Kaminey' was as much about Bhope & Mikhail & Taashi as it was about Guddu or Charlie.

The humor - 'Apna haath Jagannath’ written on the bathroom door, Sweetie having conned Guddu into marrying her & having made all the arrangements already, Guddu getting stuck on Charlie’s name while being interrogated by the cops (he keeps going ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’ & one of the cops who thinks Guddu is taking them for a ride goes “Ch*****, that’s us!)

I’ve said this before & I’ll it again – Vishal Bharadwaj is just such a talented man!!