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Wednesday, September 11, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD KAALAKAANDI
EDITOR'S PICK
'Kaalakaandi': Black humour hard sold (Review By Troy Ribeiro ; Rating: **1/2)
The title is Marathi slang -- Kaala-Kaandi. It means, something that is not
being done in the right manner or is horribly wrong. And as the title suggests,
right from the first frame, we are reminded that nothing can go right for its
characters.
What makes "Kaalakaandi" interesting, though, is its dark comedy, easy to relate
situations and characters. It is one of the easiest films to love and one of the
hardest to think of as a work of art. It approaches the notion of pure
filmmaking as entertainment; it is a nearly flawless example of- itself.
It lacks, a lesson or message and is content to show three sets of people facing
a series of interlocking challenges they face one night.
Set in Mumbai, with a variety of quirky, pseudo characters awake after midnight,
it reflects the unpredictable life in the city. But, they seldom find themselves
intertwined in a bizarre series of coincidences.
Boldly told, what happens to the characters apart from the nightmarish and
bizarre nature of their experiences can only be described as screwball logic.
While the plot unravels like the pages of a thriller, the humour seems laboured.
You witness this in the first scene and in the climax.
In the opening scene Saif Ali Khan is in his doctor's clinic where his doctor
sugar coats his diagnosis with, "You do not suffer from ulcers, hence you don't
have perforating ulcers. Instead you suffer from stomach cancer."
For a person who never experienced the excesses of life, this unpleasant bit of
news hits like a ton of bricks. So when he returns home, where the wedding
preparation of his younger brother Angad (Akshay Oberoi) is under-way, he sips
alcohol and tries a narcotic substance. This sets the ball rolling for a
roller-coaster cinematic experience.
In the second situation, Zubin (Kunal Roy Kapur) is in low spirits because his
girlfriend is migrating to America. Just before her flight, as a farewell
gesture and to celebrate the birthday of their friend Ann (Shenaz Treasurywala),
they land up at a pub which predictably gets raided. How they escape from the
clutches of the police and what fate has in store for them, forms the crux of
their story.
In the third narrative, Vijay Raaz and Deepak Dobriyal, work as flunkies for the
local gangster. After collecting the protection money from a film producer, how
greed overcomes them, forms the crux of their fate.
What keeps the quirky characters afloat are the spunky, rustic dialogues that
are gags by themselves. For instance, when Angad asks his older brother about
his sexual preference, Saif in his typical style blurts out, "Madame Curie,
curious," he asks this after Saif's escapades with a transgender. The dialogues
between Saif and the transvestite also bear testimony to this.
On the performance front all actors have put their heart and soul into their
characters and they shine on screen. Unfortunately the characters are
two-dimensional and cardboard thin. Of the supporting cast, Sobhita Dhulipala as
Zubin's girlfriend, Amyra Dastur as Neha -- Angad's fiance, Isha Talwar as the
wedding photographer and Saif's love interest, Treasurywala as Ann along with
Shivam Patil as her boyfriend Jason who calls himself "Jehangir Jehangir" have
their moments of on screen glory.
Overall with good production quality, debutant director Akshat Verma's attempt
at this noir comedy is engaging but it goes without saying that the script
material tries to sell itself a little too hard.
Kaalakaandi' is trippy, enjoyable and revealing (Review By Subhash K
Jha Rating: ***)
For those who lament the lack of skilful scrrenwriting, "Kaalakaandi" is an
earful and an eyeful. A feast for the senses, this beast of a film is hard to
tame and even harder to define.
Simmering on a slowburn, roasted at a temperature where the edges are singed
while the centre remain raw and bleeding, this is a work of tremendous creative
chaos bolstered and buoyed by an adrenaline-pumping energy that you would
instantly recognize if you've seen Akshat Varma's writing in the pronouncedly
profane Delhi Belly.
But hang on. This is not Delhi Belly Part 2. This is Mumbai Mayhem Part 1.
Fiercely original and delectably feisty it has a feeling of tingling sexiness to
it, much of it can be attributed to its gorgeous cast. The film is populated
with interesting good-looking faces like Isha Talwar playing a wedding
photographer whose lenses capture more than just images, and Amyra Dastur as a
bride so blindingly blissful she makes her groom look sheepishly compromised.
The entire ensemble cast comes together to lend a looming urgency to the
proceedings.
Saif Ali Khan sportingly participates in what is possibly the most trippy film
of his career. He is a man on death row with many dreams to live out. He is just
been told he's dying, and now he has to be part of a night adventure that would
remind him how much one can pack into 8-9 hours if you set your mind and heart
to it.
It's very hard to describe the unstoppable flow of original unexpunged ideas in
this one-night-in-the-metro story where one man gets to know he is dying and
another, coincidentally his younger brother, gets to know he is actually not the
horny bastard he thought he was. The two brothers are played with smart sharp
strokes of wicked satire by Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Oberoi. Khan and Oberoi are
not just brothers they are soul mates in search of a relevance beyond the din
and chaos of endless partying.
The cast is so vast and they all seem to have a blast. Vijay Raaz and Deepak
Dobriyal as a couple of henchmen, one of whom comes to a sticky end, play
against one another with such suave aplomb, it is like watching two expert
tennis players on two sides of an invisible net. Raaz and Dobriyal are
fantastically entertaining.
Elsewhere the beautiful Sobhita Dhulipala accompanied by her silently supportive
boyfriend (Kunaal Roy Kapoor) will expose a moral probity that would shock even
the jaded law enforcers before the night is through.
I loved the way writer-director Akshat Varma mixes the sublime and the profane
as though they always belonged together. We just didn't look. Hence when Saif
befriends a perky transvestite prostitute (Nary Singh), sneaks into a ladies'
washroom to take peep at what he/she has down there, we are not shocked. This is
that rare film which romances the renegade and emerges with some of the most
striking characters and images seen in a Hindi film.
Well, Hindi filmatechnically speaking. A lot of the very pithy and peppery
dialogues are in English. And if the 'F' word makes you wince then the
picturesque conversations of the emotional drifters in this edgy satire will
make you want to clobber them on their heads.
The atmosphere is hallucinatory. The tempo is breakneck. And the mood is
reckless. Are you ready for the ride? Like them or hate them, you cannot ignore
the droves of characters in writer Akshat Varma's directorial debut. Varma knows
Mumbai's throbbing cultural arteries and social veins.
His script gets an able ally in cinematographer Himman Dhamija. Together they
amble in and out of situations that would be outrageously funny if all the
madness didn't secrete a cautionary sobriety.
Have fun, says the film, while its lasts. But don't forget to thanks the
powers-that-be for the gift of life. In one vividly etched sequence a girl
borrows a bartender's coat in exchange for a kiss to sneak out of a police raid.
That bartender's name, Manohar, is on the coat. To remind us that exchanging
identities temporarily is more often than not, a very temporal liberating
experience. Kaalakaandi assumes many identities and eventually abandons all of
them for that one core truth that controls our destiny.
This film dares to laugh in face of mortality. That's what makes it so brave and
unique.
Actor Akshay Oberoi feels he has had a "long and hard"
journey in Bollywood, but is glad that he is creating his own path without any
'star image' attached to his work.
"It has been a long struggle and it
has been a hard journey. I am glad that I am surviving till date. I think the
reason for that is that finally people have realised to separate actors from the
film they do," Akshay told IANS in a recorded response from Mumbai.
Akshay has worked in movies like "Isi Life Mein", "Piku", "Laal Rang" and
"Kaalakaandi", which released on Friday.
"When I was starting out, I was
very keen to impress the media, the industry's directors and producers and
letting them know that I am a good actor and I can act... That wasRead More
Superstar Aamir Khan has praised the forthcoming
dark-comedy "Kaalakaandi" and said that actor Saif Ali Khan's performance in the
film was "outstanding".
Aamir, who attended the film's premier on
Thursday, took to Twitter to praise the film.
"'Kaalakaandi' is one of
the funniest films I have seen in a long time. Haven't laughed this much since I
read the script of 'Delhi Belly'. Absolutely loved all the performances. Saif
was outstanding! What a debut Akshat (director)! Proud of you. Don't miss this
one guys, it releases tomorrow. Love A," he tweeted.
<Read More
