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EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: ***
Ekdum sahi hai, boss! As Anna Hazare shifts from Tihar to Ramlila Maidan, our
cinema has made a far more gradual movement from the `arty-unintelligible`
grammar of Mani Kaul to the `arty-accessible` language of Parvin Dabas` film.
This is the land of Shyam Benegal`s social inequalities where politicians pitch
their self-interest higher than the good of the country.
Not every do-gooder is a Hazare. Sometime you just have to make do with a benign
goon like Rajbir (Parvin Dabas) who breaks legs (shot on mobile phone) and
extorts money for his surrogate-father (Sharat Saxena, in his usual excellent
form). When Rajbir and his three socially-questionable friends set their hearts
on saving their village farmers` land from urban land-sharks you know this is
the land of Sholay brought into the political consciousness of the cinema of
Mrinal Sen and Benegal.
Sahi Dhande… is an immensely ambitious film. Debutant director
Parvin Dabas sets out to create a cinema that prods the audiences` conscience
awake without lengthy speeches on corruption and reformation. Dabas keeps the
pace uniform and even.
But portions of the narration suffer from a sense of slackened tension. Where a
more taut editing pattern would have added considerably to the film`s viewable
quotient, Dabas opts to just let the plot flow in the way he deems it right. The
absence of overt intervention in making the narration slicker, is both a virtue
and a vice in the overall design. While you applaud the film`s objective
attitude to the theme you also miss the absence of a deft storytelling.
The quibble is shortlived. You cannot stop yourself from admiring the screenplay
(Dabas, Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla) for not succumbing to the temptation of creating
an enforced charm in the proceedings. Yes, the plot does take off at a rather
incongruous tangent in search of a formal climax where we see Dabas and his
compatriots put up a fight with the film`s arch villain in slow-motion splendour,
a la Dabangg.
Also some of the writing smacks of amateurishness. When at the start the Dabas
character comes out of jail his friends arrange a girl in a bikini in a bathtub
as an antidote to his year-long celibacy. Jail bin machli, kya??
And Dabas` girlfriend`s character, a pretentious arty piece with a nose ring to
go with her sham attitude, should have been barred from entering the script.
These concessions to audience-wooing apart, Sahi Dhande Galat Bande
moves at its own arrogant but endearing pace. Some characters such as the
village Taai (Neena Kulkarni) and the corrupt chief minister (Kiron Juneja)`s
conscientious son (Udit Khurana) are interesting to the point of being
liberating for the screenplay.
The lucid camerawork (Anshul Chobey) and the performances add to the film`s
energy level. Parvin Dabas, an actor who has consistently been true to his
characters, here gets a huge helping hand from his co-stars.
Sahi Dhande Galat Bande is a kind of unique effort. It teases the
conscience awake. It`s a warm and honest film that looks with unblinking
directness at issues which are more relevant now than ever.
Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande is the story of a gang comprised of
four friends-Rajbir (Parvin Dabas), Sexy (Vansh Bharadwaj), Ambani (Ashish
Nayyar) and Doctor (Kuldip Ruhil) who are given a job which will give them
enough money to make all their dreams come true, but to achieve the same they
will have to go against their conscience and the village, Kanjhawla, to which
they belong. Goading them on to make this job successful is their boss, Fauji (Sharat
Saxena), who stands to gain the most from the job`s success and realize his
dreams of becoming a politician.
On the road to completing this mission they come across a multitude of crazy
characters which includes a guru and his wrestlers, a bunch of smart ass kids, a
raging Chief Minister (Kiron Joneja Sippy), a Scheming Businessman (Anupam
Kher),the Leader of the villagers (Yashpal Sharma), an angry Aunt (Neena
Kulkarni), a college going Athlete (Udit Khurana) and a photographer Girlfriend
(Tena Desae) who wants to move on with her life, while dealing with a boss who
wants them to break his opponents legs and make mobile videos of it for
evidence!
Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande is an exciting and entertaining blend of action, comedy
and heartfelt emotion which hurtles along against a landscape of both rural and
urban India while boasting of some original and unique camerawork and a great
soundtrack. It is written and directed by first time director, Parvin Dabas, who
puts his own unique modern spin on a contemporary and original Indian story.