"Kaminey" (Language - Hindi) (2009) - Movie Review

It is said that Vishal Bharadwaj bought the script for $4000 from a Kenyan writer named Cajetan Boy. He mentored him at a script writing workshop. As much as the credit goes to the author of the script, Vishal Bharadwaj took that with the respect he has for his audience and mainly not assuming they are incapable of grasping an intelligent film. It is these kind of films wherein the comedy of errors is seriously dark. Coming in the genres of Quentin Tarantino’s dark laboratories and the followers like Guy Ritchie with his cult classic of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminey” is not a wannabe but an original and natural product of Bombay or Mumbai.

Twin brothers are poles apart and they have chosen that destined path the Indian cinema industry advised. Here it is the young Shahid Kapoor but time is not mended on the details of their separation. From the narration of Charlie Sharma, he tells the dog of a life he has led to lose all his money on derby race where someone bought the jockey to double cross. Working for psychotic brothers, Charlie is looking for that one chance to hit the button to get the money raining. The button has screwed him this time and he cannot wait to get his hands on the guy ruined it for him. This brings him to a hotel where another drug deal gone right by two enforcers Lele (Hrishikesh Joshi) and Shumon (Rajatva Dutta) for a Mafia don Tashi (Tenzing Nima). It involves a guitar.

Charlie’s twin brother is the soft spoken and stammering Guddu. He is in a crisis too. His girl friend Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) tells him that she is pregnant with his baby. But Sweety hides a sweet information about her family. She is the sister of a notoriously known Marathi clan fanatic cum politician Chief Bhope (Amole Gupte). Everybody are walking time bombs looking for blood and they are all in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you think this is a regular twin mix up, you will be surprised because there is a genuineness in this mix up.

I am yet to see Bharadwaj’s “Maqbool” while his take on Shakespeare’s Othello, “Omkara” was not alone impressive but carried careful detail in the people he pictured with the authentic Indian brush. From that, this film is a story afar in time and place. It leaves the protagonists for who they are. When chance leaves Charlie to get hold of the guitar case with drugs, he is happy to deal it with his friend and boss Mikhail (Chandan Roysonyal), an eccentric unstable personality. He comes home to fetch his stuff to find Bhope waiting with his gang to get the whereabouts of Guddu from him. Out there Charlie wants to get rid of them as smoothly and swiftly as possible. He laughs when they tease him for lisp and learning about his brother’s stammer. He stays himself and Mikhail comes to ruin the party. This is a very simple example of abiding to the sensibilities of the screenplay and character than to churn the formula film.

As much as “Kaminey” will be considered as an entertainer, it is an excellence in screenplay and every actors knowing their presence in it. Starting from the Lele and Shumon becoming the first surprise for Charlie, it extends to the details of the each characters going in branches. Tashi has his own problem with his brother in law’s partner from Angola growing impatient of the drugs not coming on time. In between these we see the ardent Marathi fanaticism in Bhope and when Bhope’s right hand man learns the news of Guddu being from Uttar Pradesh, that is one hilarious scene in the film. It finds the humour in the undercurrent of the animosity and problem of neighbouring state and clans.

While the name of Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra are for marketing purpose and they indeed do their job wonderfully, it is the goons in various forms and shapes stealing the show in “Kaminey”. There is a purpose for every character and their importance in the scenes they are around. In between them is the rainy and drenched Mumbai City forming a character of its own. In the Indian film industry an attempt of difference is considered success and “Kaminey” is not an attempt but a wonderful success.