Kaminey: Movie Review

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Priyanka Chopra, Amole Gupte, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Tenzing Nima, Shiv Subramanium

Director: Vishal Bharadwaj

When was the last time you came out of a film wishing you could go back in and watch it again immediately so the excitement in your stomach stays longer?

Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey is a film you'll either love or passionately despise.

It's an unpredictable crime drama that combines violence and dark humor in a manner that's reminiscent of the films of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and the Coen Brothers. And yet Kaminey is so original and inventive in the manner in which it takes Bollywood's favorite formula - twin brothers - and turns it on its head.

Shahid Kapur is cast as both twins, each saddled with a speech impediment. Charlie, the small-time gangster has a lisp, he pronounces every 's' as 'f'; meanwhile Guddu is a timid NGO worker who stammers when he speaks.

There's no love lost between the boys, who haven't seen each other for three years, so we follow their tracks separately, until suddenly their lives collide.

Charlie has chanced upon a guitar that contains cocaine worth 10 crore rupees. His life is made, he thinks.

Guddu, on the other hand, has got his girlfriend pregnant, and as luck would have it, turns out she's the sister of a local gangster-politician.

Take that as a cue for much mayhem which involves encounters with dreaded drug-lords, corrupt cops and the quirkiest set of henchmen any Hindi film has ever produced.

The real strength of Kaminey is its writing. The non-linear screenplay is filled with unfamiliar twists and confusing turns that are likely to baffle you along the way; yet they're all neatly tied up and culminate in a thrilling climax which is violent and comical in equal parts.

The film's dialogue is top-notch; writer-director Vishal Bharadwaj finds a way to make the lines humorous without ever seeming to ask for a laugh.

Take the scene in which Guddu squarely blames his girlfriend for getting pregnant, and she retaliates with an outburst, demanding to know if she'd raped him then.

Or the scene in which a cop Lobo coaxes Guddu to give a police statement in song, because that's the only way to get the kid to communicate without a stutter.

Kaminey boasts the best performance you will see by an ensemble cast in a long time, and that includes even the bit players.

Of the central cast, Amole Gupte is fantastic as the demented Jai Maharashtra-spouting gangster-politician Bhope, and Chandan Roy Sanyal hits all the right notes as the coke-addicted Mikhail.

Also delivering impressive turns are Tenzing Nima as the charismatic drug-smuggler Tashi and Shiv Subramanium as the vulnerable corrupt cop Lobo.

Shahid Kapur rises to the challenge of creating two entirely different characters out of Charlie and Guddu, and delivers a credible performance as each.

Breaking out of his chocolate-boy image, he gives evidence of his potential when trusted with well-written roles.

Springing a delightful surprise in a smaller part is Priyanka Chopra as the feisty Sweety, who sprinkles her lines with a smattering of fluent Marathi and emerges one of the film's most lovable characters.

For an audience numbed by predictable Bollywood potboilers week after week, Kaminey might take some time to settle into; go in with an open mind and enjoy the ride.

With unchoreographed action scenes and dances, and long portions with no background score at all, it's a wildly imaginative, original offering from a fearless filmmaker who doesn't insult your intelligence. Guys, It's a must watch movie.

Agyaat: Movie Review

Cast: Nitin Reddy, Priyanka Kothari, Gautam Rode, Rasika Duggal, Ishteyak Khan, Ishrat Ali, Ravi Kale, Howard Rosemeyer, Kali Prasad Mukherjee, Joy Fernandes

Director: Ramgopal Varma

At a running time of one hour and forty minutes, Ramgopal Varma's Agyaat is an interesting experiment that doesn't overstay its welcome.

When a film unit goes into a forest for shooting, an unknown, inexplicable entity begins killing them one by one. With everyone's lives at stake, hierarchal differences in the team no longer matter; each must fend for himself, and soon people's real personalities begin to surface.

Agyaat, interestingly, is as much a comment on human nature as it is a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase. Varma spends the film's first 45 minutes or so establishing his characters and the group dynamics.

Self-absorbed movie-star torments his spot-boy and generally behaves like the world owes him a favor, earnest assistant director is nursing a crush on the amiable leading lady, irritable action director can't stand the sight of the hero - 10 such oddballs with their own set of quirks and prejudices are introduced to us at an agonizingly slow pace, while the film's second half is marked out for the suspenseful killings.

This in fact, works against Agyaat which ultimately feels like two different films.

Varma might have done better to jump straight into the action, establishing his characters and their equations along the way, thereby giving this film the breathless, edge-of-the-seat tension that is sadly missing here. It's something he pulled off so well in Kaun, which dived straight into the tension, creating that ominous feeling at the very start.

Nevertheless, the pace in Agyaat picks up post-intermission as one after another the characters are knocked off in thrilling attack scenes that never visually reveal the attacker, but use excellent sound design to conjure up your imagination and confront your worst fears.

Now I've never been deep in a jungle, but I know if I was, every rustle in the trees, every snap of a twig would terrify me about who and what was out there. Varma taps into that fear to the fullest, and banks on the expressions of the characters to convey just what they've got themselves into.

Agyaat is neither The Blair Witch Project nor Cloverfield which may be obvious inspirations but were different because of the real-time, documentary feel that both films had. Agyaat reminds you more of the early seasons of the hit TV series Lost, where even the audience has no clue what it is exactly that is attacking the characters.

What surprises you about this film is the sharp characterisations. It's as if Varma is holding up a mirror to how a film unit operates, complete with monstrous egos and fickle relationships.

As the spiteful movie-star who alienates the entire unit with his high-handed behavior, the relatively unknown Gautam Rode shines through with an accurate caricature of some of our own starry Bollywood types. The rest of the ensemble too delivers convincing performances, especially Ravi Kale as the short-fused action director who needs the slightest excuse to tip over.

Agyaat makes no pretences about the fact that it's only goal is to rattle you, and it achieves that several times with some chilling moments that make you jump out of your seat.

It's not great cinema, it isn't intended to be; Agyaat is an event picture which delivers a few good thrills. With a tighter first-half and a slicker pace and minus those two redundant item songs, this might have been a more compelling ride.