Viewed: KAMINEY

Vishal Bhardwaj walks a somewhat different territory this time. Though he again dabbles into the dark side of humans, he takes the interesting route of humor in his attempt to tell a tale of a thriller which is set in the city that is the capital of amalgamation – Bombay. With so much of skill and talent, in evidence for long, Bhardwaj pulls off another successful story.

Playing on the story of twins, with one walking on the good side, another on the evil, he showcases a world that is full of corrupted folks with everyone trying to gain as much money and power as they can.

In a world full of deceitful men – drugs landlord, betting mafia, corrupt policemen and an amoral politician, this is chiefly the story of Charlie a small-time crook who dreams of owning his own booking window at the race course, and his (twin) brother, Guddu, his opposite, a nice and nervous bloke.

As Charlie gets lucky with a big haul of cocaine, the drug-landlord is after him. And As Guddu who has impregnated the aggressive Sweety is in a mess courtesy her brother, who is a bhai cum politician after his life. With them being caught by opposite gangs, it makes for interesting viewing.

For a thriller to work, the plot has to carefully intertwine and Kaminey works pretty solid. Bhardwaj plays on the narrative by breaking it in parts interspersed with flashbacks. It's technically not non-linear; the film keeps logically moving ahead but since it's edited in small-small units, for once it works good, especially as the various threads of the story are unfolded over the time, not at one-shot.

This is an interesting move – breaking the whole into many parts and managing to make it gripping. What really helps strongly in keeping the momentum going is the background music. But the key remains – the ability of Bhardwaj's team to create humor. It is by far the biggest binding factor, which makes the film quite entertaining.

Expectedly, and admirably as ever, Bhardwaj proves his high mettle as director in eliciting top-notch performances from everyone. Shahid Kapoor is not Shahid but Charlie and Guddu, and Priyanka is very effective. All character actors are spot-on.

Another great technique used to showcase the various elements of Bombay is to throw in different languages. There is the Bengali booking mafia who talk in Bengali and then the politician who is a Marathi, and with no sub-titling it makes it interesting and also challenging for the audience, who are not used to the fare.

This is where Bhardwaj deserves a salute – in attempting to change the accepted norms of film-making in India. It is a huge risk, but such films where the narrative is not expository where the understanding is in watching the film in patience without getting judgmental help in maturing the audience.

Another cool thing of the film is doing a good amount of shoot outdoors – trains and rails are the key motifs within the film. Considering the film is about the dark side of human nature the film is mostly shot in dark, and the element of rains plays a strong part too.

This is another of Bhardwaj's strengths – cinematography and art direction playing a critical role. This film is as slick as it gets in Indian cinema. Bhardwaj is a master of scenes construction and Kaminey shines in this regard. Not to forget – dialogues. He shows that he is likely to be India's finest dialogue-writer. Hardly any thing is superfluous and every bit adds to the meaning of the characters and story.

The issues in the film at times tend to be periods where the film slows down, where it almost feels that the film is getting too cute for itself, though it does seem to be a direct intent at times, which in itself is fine; this aspect is also exploited well by the playing R.D. Burman's songs and paying a tribute to him.

The film does seem to be doing too much at times – there are too many characters flowing and at times you almost feel short-changed; perhaps Guddu should have had more screen-time. There is also an excess of hand-held camera, which becomes jarring at times.

It's no doubt a challenging film to make, not because of the tale but because of the way Bhardwaj wants to depict the story visually. And he does pretty well once again. With an ability to score with such creativity and direct with so much of freshness, he once again highlights his talent as one of India's finest in films, who is head and shoulders above others.

Kaminey is about Charlie, a young ambitious kid, (youth of our times?), who is not morally bound, but eventually he has to face his dark side and choose what path he needs to take. But…don't bet on that!


Based on an idea by Cajetan Boy
Writers: Vishal Bhardwaj, Abhishek Chaubey, Sabrina Dhawan, Supratik Sen
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj


Rating ***

[Max Rating ****]


[Viewed in Delhi. At Sangam on 22^nd Aug with Rajeev and on 23^rd Aug at Fun, Moti Nagar with folks and Bunty + family]