Excerpt: Vishal Bharadwaj’s attitude-laden KAMINEY lets the world know one more time that the real thing about a cinematic story is not the story itself; but the whole art of actually telling it. Strongly recommended.
Review: It’s sequences like the pre-climax of KAMINEY that real admirers of the emotion called cinema wait for, every single friday of their lives. It has got adrenaline-pumping background score; it has got hopelessly aimless mayhem of guns, gore and violence; and then it has got that deafening silence of the moment, which makes us think about the futility of it all. Futility of living and killing for money, identity and power. Yes, it’s largely cinematic violence. Yes, it’s largely larger than life. But it’s the life of the film. Life, which is replete with Kaminey of all hue. So unreal. Yet so much like life. KAMINEY.
KAMINEY is a story of twins Charlie & Guddu who are separated by the death of their father and the deeds of their lives. Charlie lisps (speaks ‘f’ for every ’s’) while Guddu has a stutter problem. Neither of the two can stand each other; and lead their lives away from each other, till a fast-moving sequence of events one night bring them face-to-face with each other and gangsters, rebel soldiers, regional, divisive thugs-turned-politicians and corrupt cops. While Charlie’s sole aim is to come out of it alive, possibly with Rs. 10 lakhs, for Guddu, the primary cause of getting sucked into it is Sweety (Priyanka Chopra), his wife of a few hours.
It is a mad-cap, dark humour laced, stylish noir piece of cinema.
Shahid Kapoor is first-rate as both Guddu and Charlie. Hindi cinema has now well and truly discovered one more actor-star. It is difficult to make out which is more overpowering, his double act or the sheer screen-blazing star charisma. He put is an awefome performance; a performance that would now pitchfork him fraight to the big league.
Ditto for Priyanka Chopra. She looks, acts and comes across as so much of a girl next door that it would be difficult to make an uninformed believe that she is a former Miss World and the bikini-strutting gal of Dostana. Very inspiring performance.
And yet, what steals the thunder from right under the lead actors are the performances of the rest of the ensemble cast. Amol Gupte as Bhope (a slimy, thug-turned regionalistic political leader) comes up with a truly rivetting performance. He looks so convincing as a cheap politician and goon that it almost makes us wonder if he really wrote the script and screenplay of Taare Zameen Par.
Deb Mukherjee as Mujeeb, Rajatva Dutta as Shumon and Chandan Roy Sanyal (exceptional) as Mikhail, the three Bengali brothers of the underworld; Tenzing Nima as Tashi (the drug lord) and Shiv Subrahmanyam as Lobo & Hrishikesh Joshi as Lele, the two corrupt policemen, play their part with immaculate precision. But for the performances of these people, KAMINEY would not have become the film that it has. Credit should be given to Honey Trehan for casting such eclectic group of actors.
Tassaduq Hussain’s cinematography and Vishal Bharadwaj’s background score play as intrinsic role in the film as all the actors. A largely dark film, Tassaduq lights up the screen with his grasp over the subject matter and its characters.
But it is Vishal Bharadwaj who deserves the biggest pat on the back. Slowly evolving as one of India’s finest directors of all times, KAMINEY is an all-out Vishal Bharadwaj film. From screeplay to music, and from characterisation to direction, the film has his stamp on every frame. It is high-time that mainstream media sobers down its unceasing obsession with the candy-floss filmmakers and give homage to dirctor’s of Vishal’s ilk too.
KAMINEY lives up to its hype. Go watch it!