Dhan Te Nan

Let’s stand and applaud. Quentin Tarantino of Indian Cinema has arrived. And how! With Kaminey, Vishal Bharadwaj weaves the familiar Tarantino-ish magic of black humour and gorgeous violence. Yes, I used the word gorgeous as an adjective to violence–because in filmmaking, that is possible and yet very difficult to achieve.

Kaminey is a milestone in the way movies are made in Bollywood. For starters, it doesn’t dumb down the story for the audience. Second, the cinematography is far from the clean landscape beauty of commercial cinema. Instead, the movie is shot in dark places, with handhelds, pretty shaky yet gripping. Third, no one has ever dealt with the ‘judwa’ theme like this in Bollywood, and I mean ever.

The plot is complex. The movie takes around 20 minutes to establish all the characters and storylines. And as you are just wondering what on earth is going on, the movie kicks into its roller coaster ride.

The plot is: Two identical brothers, who hate the sight of each other, and lead very different lives, suddenly find themselves in life-threatening imbroglios. One, the straight forward college student, has a pregnant girlfriend and her murderous brother to deal with. The other, a smalltime bookie and gangster, has stumbled upon loads of cocaine and is wanted by several mafia gangs. There are multiple plot lines that meet and separate throughout the movie and somehow all tie together in a hilarious and almost poetic end. Oh, it is so brilliant!!

Shahid Kapoor is excellent t in both his avatars, and is blessed to land a role like this. Priyanka Chopra does a very good modern day Kaali wielding a burning torch in one scene and a machine gun in another. The whole supporting cast is absolutely fantastic in their roles. My favorite performance was that of Amol Gupte as the slightly off the edge, don turned politician Sunil Shekhar Bhope. Every time he came on the screen, I shivered with fear. All characters are unpredictable and that keeps the audience on the edge.

Kudos to the writers for such a clever script! I loved the use of different languages, that brought in so much authenticity to the mélange of characters that make the movie.

I am absolutely a huge fan of music in Bharadwaj’s movies. Omkara’s music made me weep. How can one man be so talented? Gulzar’s lyrics are absolutely on the spot in the title song “Kaminey” and truly reflect the sentiment of the movie. And how can we not mention Dhan-te-nan – I don’t think it’s possible to hear this music and not head bang? I hear it in my car, literally every day.

Watch Kaminey, please.

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