Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! is a Bollywood - movie
directed by Dibakar Banerjee.
Starring Abhay Deol,Paresh Rawal,Neetu Chandra,Archana Puran Singh,Manu Rishi,Richa Chadda,Anurag Chadda,Manjot Singh,Rajinder Sethi.
`Oye Lucky!...`- a joyous, bumpy crime caper (IANS Film Review)
Rating: ***
This is one helluva film about a lucky
thief named Lucky who nonchalantly enters Delhi`s well-to-do homes, picks up
television sets and sound systems, and walks out in broad daylight.
"Oye Lucky…" is a sly, shimmering mirror of a dysfunctional society
always craving for more... not knowing where the greed to be upwardly mobile
finally ends.
You could look for parallels to Banerjee`s aggressively-original vision in crime
capers ranging from Arthur Penn`s Bonnie & Clyde to Shaad Ali`s "Bunty
Aur Babli". You may also discern enchanting elements from the quirky crime
capers of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers in the relationship between
thief Abhay Deol and his mentor Paresh Rawal.
But finally the all-consuming impulses of the Indian middle-class, their craving
to be seen on television and their desire to be heard above the daily din is
used really well by Bannerje.
The narration is miraculously liberated from the claustrophobia of middle-class
ambitions to take us on a joyous bumpy caper ride. Not for a second do we feel
the weight of the morality tale that lurks under the crowded front of the
middleclass need and greed.
Delhi`s lower middle-class suburbs are used to create a famished environment for
our adolescent hero Lucky to be born in a state of abject wanting and craving.
By the time Lucky grows up, so does the narrative.
Director Banerjee steers diametrically away from the format he adopted in his
first film "Khosla Ka Ghosla". There`s no room for patience or
explanations here.
The director cleverly and wisely reserves all judgement. Lucky`s life on the run
is neither glamorous nor too much fun. Nor is it squalid. This detachment from
the scenes of the crime is what sets "Oye Lucky…" apart from other
crime capers.
Then there`s the casting. Faces that you might or might not have seen before
blend into the bristling brew of laughter, lies and betrayal. Take the girl who
plays Neetu Chandra`s embittered, excitable sister. She can be anybody or nobody
and therefore special to the requirement of the film about trying to stand out
in a crowd.
Archana Puransingh and Paresh Rawal as an unctuous Punjabi couple sweet-talking
Lucky into investing for a restaurant project are great. Rawal in fact gives
three wonderful performances as three different characters who play a part in
shaping Lucky`s destiny.
Abhay Deol`s act is constantly laced with a streak of mean wickedness. He
doesn`t act. He just lets his character be. Deol isn`t afraid of being
embarrassed. Watch how he slobbers all over his kid-brother during a holiday
with his girlfriend.
Neetu Chandra, superb earlier as the street hawker in Madhur Bhandarkar`s
"Traffic Signal", gets the point completely. She stays underplayed in
an underwritten part.
The bigger picture clearly lies in the honest detailing in this tongue-in-cheek
caper about coveting the good things of life.
"Oye Lucky…" gets savagely funny at times. Check out the sequence
where Lucky tows a stolen television into a wayward politician`s son`s home,
only to find every large corner occupied by television sets.
Look closely into "Oye Lucky…" and you can see where our society
took the wrong turn.
Actor Manjot Singh of "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!" fame says whenever he expresses his desire to do serious and romantic roles in Bollywood, he is told that a "Sardar will only be accepted in a comic role". The young actor believes only Sikh actors can break this perception.The audience has seen his comic side in films like "Student of the Year" and "Fukrey".He agrees that he has done many comic roles but "not the ones where I have had to humiliate myself. The kind of roles that I have taken up were more like situational comedy".And he wants to explore more genres.Read More
Bollywood actress Richa Chadha, who is playing a pivotal character in web series "Inside Edge", finds the digital entertainment platform powerful and says that as a creative person, she never fears to experiment.
Read More
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! Synopsis
From the inner city ghetto of West Delhi, Lucky, a gawky 15-year-old lower
middle class Sikh kid, rises to become one of the most wanted master thieves of
India with tens of millions worth loot, a glamorous lifestyle, cars, women, and
a fan following.
As a kid, there is little at home for Lucky except an alienated family and a
dysfunctional relationship with his violent, bullying father. He is a keen
observer of the world around him from his immediate surroundings his friends,
dropouts, delinquents, petty criminals to the world he aspires to – the
nouveau riche - private school kids, shining cars with power windows, and pretty
girls from posh neighbourhoods who seem forever inaccessible – they all add to
his store of knowledge.
Over his adventures, we see Lucky form his worldview. And that is – if you
don`t have it, steal it.
Together with his childhood friend Bangali he graduates to becoming a
full-fledged thief and is introduced to a man who will change the course of his
life: Gogi Bhai – a flamboyant musical bandleader who`s also a fence for
stolen goods. A man who becomes a surrogate father.
Lucky rapidly rises to become Gogi`s star operator. Through him Lucky meets a
host of characters who will define who he will become including Dolly, Gogi`s
aggressive, hard bitten star dancer and her college going, quiet younger sister
Sonal with whom he begins a tentative romance. Lucky`s independent nature,
insatiable ambition and hunger for the unreachable accelerate his path in crime
and matters are brought to a head by a pivotal act of betrayal that scars Lucky
for life and sets him off into a new trajectory of life.
Lucky`s journey develops him into a flamboyant playboy who now wants more than
just the riches. Now he needs the respectability, the social standing of a city
gentleman. Without sacrificing that reckless freedom he cherishes - the duality
of having the freedom to steal.
But this is, perhaps, half the tale.
The other half is about why a wealthy thief who stole tens of millions worth of
jewellery, cars, gadgets and other valuables would also steal a greeting card, a
teddy bear and a framed photo of a family playing in the snow.
BOLLYWOOD 
