Kaminey – Kaminey indeed but not Kaminey Enough

It can be argued that the real test of talent of a good director lies not in his story but in its telling. In this sense, s/he would be like those classical bards who invented not the stories (and almost always borrowed from the existing mythologies) but the forms and styles to put them in. Indeed that’s how good and successful adaptations have earned a special place in cinema including Bhardwaj’s earlier adaptations of William Shakespeare plays.

Kaminey is not an adaptation in the way Maqbool and Omkara were, but the story or its elements are not entirely new. We have seen stories of Bollywood twin brothers – one good the other bad as we have seen gangster films, and, where all of the film is a set up for one big climactic action at the end… and yet, Bhardwaj’s films have a distinct auteur’s stamp that lends a newness to the narrative and a charm to the characters. He has developed a cinematic language that is ‘stylistically realist’ and one that produced amazing results in Omkara and works well enough if not perfectly for Kaminey.

Kaminey is a story of twin brothers Guddu and Charlie (one stammers, the other lisps; heart warming traits used to good effect), and how their fate gets entangled as try to fulfill their dreams. Guddu is the good guy who leads AIDS awareness campaigns and remembers the importance of a condom even in the heat of a personal moment. Charlie believes there are only two ways of making it big – short cut (or ‘fort cut’ as he says it) and chhota [shorter] short cut. So while Guddu is doing the right thing and marrying his pregnant girlfriend, Charlie is taking a chhota fort cut, resulting in a mix-up, involving a local neta, police and druglords, as everyone’s plans go haywire.

The narrative voice is Charlie’s and he keeps up the fun with his lisp and his black pearls of wisdom. Charlie and his small-time dreams (for goods worth 10 crores, he wants just 10 lakhs) keep the human angle alive in his side of the story, which is a dark world with quirky characters. The ‘Bengali bandhu’ that he works for are a welcome variation to the regular Mumbai gangs. It is pleasant to hear Bangla (and later Marathi) without distracting subtitles. Guddu and Sweety’s (Priyanka Chopra) love story keeps up with its directness and good dialogues.

Allthough Vishal usually starts his scenes mid-way into the acts – the pace often feels slow, party because the essential stories at the end of them all are fairly simple, lessening their overall impact. Also in a story about Kamineys [scoundrels], it is a let down that the lead protagonists are not kaminey enough – the sly Charlie is a let down when he proves to be an honorable chap in the end – a man who cared for his father and returns to look out for his brother (bringing us back to the old Bollywood ‘black & white’ perspective and one the director had apparently set out to rewrite). I think it would been more interesting if Charlie would have let the dumb Guddu die and try run away with the money and Sweetie (who too agrees to the proposal). Their Dad instead of stealing a watch should have sold the twins for a watch (and so on). The supporting cast shows its dark sides – for example, there is a hilarious auctioneering of the loot towards the end between the mafia and the police – only one is left wanting for more. If the film reminds you of Quentin Tarantino, it’s only fair, but there is a vital difference. If Tarantino proves that a good story can be told using the kitch and tacky 80s style (Jackie Brown, Death Proof), Kaminey stresses on a director’s individual style in retelling of a formula story but one that was not sufficiently tweaked. [If the climax reminds you of Guy Ritchie, it is because the set up resembles the climax of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.]

Vishal has a talent for bringing out good performances. Just when Shahid Kapur was beginning to get on the nerves with his ‘good boy with a smile pasted across his face’ acts, Kaminey brings out ‘Charlie & Guddu’ in him. He doesn’t quite pull off a Langda Tyagi, but plays Charlie surprisingly well. His Guddu act has a very convincing stammer and towers above the performances he has given so far. But the real surprise and treat of the film is Ms. Priyanka Chopra. This is perhaps the first time that she looks the character and not herself. She plays Sweetie with gusto and her dialogues in Marathi sound very authentic. Amole Gupte as Bhope Bhau (kudos for weaving in the Maratha hate-politics in the storyline) and Shiv Subramaniam as the senior cop are menacingly good.

Tassaduq Hussain joins the director after Omkara to provide a noteworthy camera-work, only here he has saved enormously on the lighting bill and I am not sure if the utter dark frames work really well for the narrative (one might add, Omkara’s was just right). Gulzar and Vishal continue to make for a perfect lyricist-composer duo. So much has been said about Gulzar’s inimitable style that any more would seem superfluous. And yet how can one not talk of a poet who brings back a near-lost vocabulary with ‘dil ka bazaar laga/ dhela, taka, pai baje’ or wonder at the imagination put into the AIDS awareness song – ‘patwar pehan jana, yeh aag ka dariya hai’.

Kaminey is a director’s film and if Vishal Bhardwaaj’s effort is measured in the manner of story-telling alone, he passes the test with respectable grades.