Movie: Kaminey
Cast: Shahid Kapoor (double role), Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte etc.
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Run Time: 130 minutes
My rating: ***

Do I really have to compare Kaminey with Omkara? I mean, can anything ever be a comparison to that million dollar starting lines (bewkoof aur ch…..) of Omkara? May be I should accept it as a typical Vishal start to have a few punch packed lines in the beginning. But! Ah! The quintessential critical self!

Kaminey starts with an introduction, a stylish one at that, of Charlie about himself which is a brief about his character, his views on life, his speech disabilities, his ambitions. It then culminates into a one liner, a typical Vishal Bhardwaj one liner.

Kaminey, unlike the name, is a mixture of some extra ordinary works of geniuses, with the cinematography and music departments turning out to be the best. Take for example the Charlie’s introduction scene where he inadvertently follows a flying currency note. And while he does that, everything else on the screen goes dark with light just on Charlie and the currency note that he follows. The scene speaks volumes about the characterization, it out right tells you about the character Charlie; how he forgets the whole world in the matters of money. And just as you are about to recover from the awe inspiring scene, some excellent music score and even better screenplay of a chase scene elevates you into even higher horizons.

I was really eager to see how Vishal executed the movie because the plot got leaked much before. And believe me this did have a subsiding effect on me. May be I should have opted out of choosing to read the plot published in Times of India. But nevertheless, the overall feel was good.

At 130 minutes, Kaminey should not be seen as a movie. It should be seen as an assortment of extremely well made scenes which knit together so well that they complete the movie. Rain is used extensively throughout the movie which made a huge difference to overall feel. There is this scene where Mikhail (Chandan Roy Sanyal) comes in his car to meet Charlie. There is a deal that was to be made. Mikhail sings the song from Spider Man dancing in the rain only to be followed by Charlie! The rain, the music, the lighting all were so spectacularly done that the scene still haunts me. And then there is a scene in the climax where Charlie changed by circumstances decides to put off the diamonds back into the hands of the bad guys, and the moment he does that he was shot. This scene too is excellently done, there are a dozen such scenes which enhance the viewer experience, which elevate the mood of the movie into new spaces(I am refraining to discuss some characters here for fear of spoiling, will update the same soon!).

Then there are characterisations, some deep, some shallow and some just right. Vishal chose to add a regional touch to his characters this time. He explored the fraternity of Bengalis, where they would do anything for the sake of brotherhood. Vishal then roped in Amol Gupte to show the intricacies of Marathi-manoos. Priyanka did an excellent job as the sister (Sweety) of a young and ambitious politician. Sweety’s character is one of the best and demands applause. The desperation to set herself free and harmless guile with which she traps the people around her are all well captured by Priyanka Chopra.

I do not want to spoil fun by speaking much about Guddu and Charlie, go and watch to know more. However, I strongly felt that Tashi’s (Tenzing Nima) character was under utilized. And so was Mikhail’s. From the trailers I was expecting so much from these two characters, which for me were not up to the mark.

It is Vishal’s trademark to deal with human emotions. And Kaminey is no exception. As I have said Sweety’s love for Guddu was just awesome. There is selfishness, desperation, possessiveness, white lies, desire, innocence, anger, helplessness all packed into this love story. The chemistry between Guddu and Sweety is sweet. And then comes Charlie. Especially in the particular scene where Guddu meets Charlie, what a scene it was. The helplessness of Charlie when Guddu walks away daring Charlie to shoot him gave me Goosebumps. Full marks for Shahid Kapoor for adeptly transitioning from the guy-next-door type Guddu to the punter and dashing type Charlie. He was effortless when he shifted from a stammering character to the lisp.

Another commendable part of the movie is the subtle humour it effortlessly engineers into itself. There is no separate comedy track in Kaminey. There are no comedians used, it is just those typical Vishal one-liners that imbibe humour into the movie. The speech disabilities of Charlie, Guddu and Sweety, no matter how much the director disclaimed in his movie promotions, did create humour. When Charlie says “life faale kutti cheez hain” or when Guddu and Sweety stammer in their cute conversations, you can’t help but smile.

The music, as I reviewed earlier is just awesome. Charlie’s theme took all the chase sequences to a new horizon. They just take you off! However, Kaminey track was not used completely and Pehli Baar was sent to the end.

I always maintain that if there is one actor in Bollywood who can make it to Hollywood it is Hrithik and now if there is one director who could make it to Hollywood it is Vishal Bhardwaj. Kaminey is by no standards less than any of those Hollywood flicks.

In spite of all this, Kaminey didn’t satisfy me. It left me with thirst for more. One reason may be the pace and length of the movie. Another may be the Bollywoodish climax which played spoilsport for the movie. Vishal seemed to put deliberate efforts to not to make it darker. The script has the potential and the story belongs to the director, he played with the concept, created new dimensions to the characters, did a great screen play but somewhere forgot to “dil nichodna” because if he wanted the movie’s true dark side would have been aptly portrayed, which did not happen in this Kaminey. At the end of it all I felt Kaminey was not Kamina enough.