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Monday, April 29, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD BADMAASH COMPANY
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: ***
There`s a longish sequence in an American eatery in the
second-half of this deeply flawed and yet refreshingly cool urbane casual and
yet highly cinematic work where Shahid Kapoor`s Karan, by now on the road to
seemingly irredeemable moral degeneration is told by his partner, played by
newcomer Vir Das, that he wants out.
The way that sequence progresses and the manner in which the two actors play out
a conventional friends-falling-apart moment, just makes you forgive all the
excesses of inflated self-worth that the script suffers from in the last 90
minutes of this endearing though exasperating experience.
"Badmaash Company" is a film that is too smart for its own good. The
main characters, four friends bonded by the collective will to grow rich
overnight, go through a series on caper experiences. Not all of it is either
convincing or even interesting. After a point, we know exactly where this
quartet is hurling to. And the slide out of moral degeneration is never touching
enough to make us shed a tear for these misguided over-reachers.
The doom comes none too soon, and then the narrative proceeds without a proper
graph. By the time Karan (Shahid Kapoor)`s spunky girl Bulbul (Anushka Sharma)
leaves him the script begins to look like one of those subverted morality tales
from the house of the Bhatts where the heroes talk with clenched fists and
heroines weep in their pillows as their companions come home in a drunken
stupor.
We`ve been here before. But wait. There is a sense of intuitive cockiness about
the narrative which just sees the film`s improbable mixture of the trendy and
the trite to the final stretch of predictable moral redemption.
There is a sense of the predictable and yet the unpredictable in the
storytelling. Debutante director Parmeet Sethi`s screenplay is one of those
things that you want to believe merely because it sounds so smart on paper. But
not all of this makes complete or even incomplete sense. The climax about colour-bleeding
shirts being sold to America as the Next Best Thing is much too far-fetched to
work even as a part of a con caper.
Nonetheless "Badmaash Company" has a lot going for itself. The
first-half when Karan meets Bulbul, Zing and Chang to create an instantly
materialistic energy, gets you interested in these out-of-control lives. You
don`t quite empathize with their overweening goals. But at least they seem to
know their minds, even if on occasions the plot doesn`t seem to know what it`s
doing.
There`s something pitch-friendly about the four actors and the way they tackle
the plot material, sometimes cool sometimes over-reaching itself. If the film
holds together it`s because of the bonafide enthusiasm and unconditional
surrender to the proceedings of the actors.
Shahid Kapoor pitches in another perfectly poised and subtle performance even
though his character`s graph gets blurred towards the end. You can`t stop caring
for Karan`s character because Shahid doesn`t let go of his centre even when the
narrative gets shaky.
Anushka Sharma in a stunning makeover conveys her character`s spirit and spunk
through her well-toned body language and that twinkle in the eye. Tragically a
lot of her speech and morality, and this goes for a lot of the film`s careless
periodicity, is not 1980s(the film`s setting) at all.
Vir Das as the film buff with a roving eye negotiates his character with gentle
care. Here`s one actor who knows what he`s doing even when his character
doesn`t. And Meiyang Chang as the chinky-eyed alcohol guzzling Gangtok-guy seems
made for his character.
"Badmaash Company" is an extremely smart and smart-looking film. But
its sassy all-knowing tone cannot hide a certain bankruptcy of genuinely
inventive ideas. This is a fatally-flawed film about seriously flawed
characters. The packaging is glamorous but not over-done. The dialogues convey a
ring of truth without bending backwards to be cool.
"Badmaash Company" has enough going for itself to make it an
experience worth our while.
Life
in the 1990’s was remarkably different for the average Indian. Consumerism
had not set in. It was devoid of most of the luxuries of the West. In fact
everything “imported” was good, and everything Indian, passé.
BADMAASH COMPANY is an extraordinary story set in the 1990’s in middle
class Bombay (as it was known then), of four ordinary youngsters – Karan (Shahid
Kapoor), Bulbul (Anushka Sharma), Zing (Meiyang Chang) and Chandu (Vir Das)
– who came together to start an import business of things longed for by
yuppie Indians!
What made their venture such a stupendous success was the fact that they
found a way to beat the system and soon became the undisputed kings in their
business, realising their one dream of making quick money by doing all the
wrong things… the right way!
Living the life of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, the four friends
discover that to make a business successful you don’t need big money.
All you need is a big idea!
