India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
Chaalis Chauraasi: Stellar cast, not-so-stellar film
The one thing director Hriday Shetty’s film “Chaalis Chauraasi” can boast of is a stellar cast. With actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni and Kay Kay Menon as his leads, and a story idea with lots of great possibilities, it’s safe to say this film sounds great on paper.
Of course, most films must sound good on paper or else no one would make them, but that’s another story (or a blog). “Chaalis Chauraasi” is fashioned as a caper film, in which four small-time crooks plan on getting their hands on a huge sum of money that is lying in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere.
They decide to disguise themselves as policemen, get hold of a police car and make their way to their destination, but as you’d guess, nothing is quite so simple and the plan doesn’t quite work as they expected.
Naseeruddin Shah plays Mohit Suri, the leader of the gang, and somewhat of a mentor to the other three. Kay Kay Menon plays Pinto (a car thief), Atul Kulkarni plays Bobby (a small-time pimp whose dream is to one day own a “world-class escort service”) and Ravi Kishan is Shakti (a drug trader).
Together, the four have a good chemistry on screen and their camaraderie is evident, but Shetty’s direction plays spoilsport. Like an errant driver who is never sure of where he’s going or when he should accelerate, Shetty keeps veering off track, introducing bad comedy tracks or meaningless item songs at crucial moments.
The item songs (three of them) are especially jarring, almost as if Shetty is trying to make up for the lack of a female lead. The film doesn’t have the tight pace a caper film should have, and some of the scenes are pretty amateurish.
For example, in one tense hotel room scene, where Kulkarni and Menon’s characters enter a room tentatively, looking for a gangster, the entire camera set-up and the cameraperson are reflected in a TV set in the room. That’s something you’d think a director would notice.
Kaminey: The director is the real star
Sometimes you get the best insights from the most unexpected sources. Like my mother for instance — she isn’t much of a movie person but asked me how “Kaminey” was.
“Is it like ‘Omkara’? Because I didn’t like that movie at all at first, but now that I think about it, I think it’s a great film,” she said.
And that’s when it struck me. It’s the same thing with “Kaminey“, except that you don’t dislike the movie at first watch. You just realise how brilliant it is a few hours after you’ve watched the film and then ruminate over it.
On the face of it, director Vishal Bhardwaj gives you a fast-paced, thrilling caper film littered with twists at every turn. So gripping are the happenings on screen that it’s only later you have time to marvel at the director’s attention to detail, his mastery over the craft and also the immense skill it must have taken to shoot a film like this in real time locations.
In what can be termed a highly unconventional double role (especially by Bollywood standards) Shahid Kapur plays Guddu and Charlie, twins whose life philosophies are so different they hate the sight of each other.
Guddu is the “decent” one, getting an education while working at an NGO. Charlie, on the other hand, is a gambler who hedges bets at the race track and lives life on the edge.
Guddu is in love with Sweety Bhope (Priyanka Chopra), who discovers she is pregnant. (Watch out for this scene, especially because it comes at the end of a song where Guddu is preaching safe sex to sex workers).
Kaminey rocks!!! Fantastic performances, the screenplay has such details and nuances that only Vishal Bharadwaj could have brought to it…the music is awesome too. I think it’s one of the best movies of this decade easily. Smartly and sleekly made– it really involves you, from the start and the dark humour at certain points is so brilliant. I think any perceptive, thinking person would see what a gem of a movie it is….love it!
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The Wall
