Glorious Scoundrels

Vishal Bhardwaj makes a first half that is so good that it is near-flawless. Charlie lisps. Guddu stammers. To create identical twins with a distinctive speech impediment is a master stroke. And to set them in a sea of dubious,dodgy characters,where they all have to swim or sink,has the audacious stamp of a director who has always gone where everyone else in Bollywood has feared to tread.

He gives the twins completely different,completely captivating identities. Charlie dreams of finding a “fortkut” to fortune,while doing the dirty work for a betting syndicate. The earnest Guddu works,quite appropriately,with an NGO. The love of his life is Sweety (Priyanka Chopra),who has done a little fiddle of her own to get close to the cute guy who stammers. The lead characters of a Hindi film who are not straight and narrow,and proud of it? You lick your chops,and settle down to the rest of the feast you hope will be as delicious.

And for a while,it is,as Bhardwaj goes about setting the scene. Other kaminey surface,one after the other. Tashi the gangster,with his cheroot and fancy yacht. A trio of Bengali brothers who fix races. Local hood Bhope Bhau,lover of Marathi manoos and hater of all the others who live in Mumbai. A couple of crooked cops fronting a huge drug deal. A guitar full of white powder worth crores. The seductive smell of illicit cash. The director picks up his mix,gives it a good shake and lets his gang of grifters rock and roll. Till the interval,Kaminey is fabulous: dhan ta nan!

In the second half,almost imperceptibly,the film starts unraveling. The concertina effect of cutting swiftly from one set of situations to another,which keeps you riveted,loses steam. The fringe characters start demanding more,and the fulcrum of the film — the twins who love and hate each other in equal measure — recedes too far. There are moments when it looks as if things will come together again,but those keep getting further apart. And then the director succumbs to his fatal flaw of not managing a wrap — in the climax,as a Mumbai basti turns into the wild,wild West,the violence gets terribly operatic. The sky darkens,the gun-battle is choreographed to the last bullet — and every single kamina shows up at the party. It all becomes too much noise,not enough traction.

Still,we would say,go watch,because this is Bollywood’s first all-the-way-out-to-there pulp fiction. Just lower your expectations. A Vishal Bhardwaj film,even this one with such strong shades of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie and Stephen Frears,gives you more than you’ll get in most of the pap that comes out of Bollywood. Savour a super-sexed-up Shahid Kapoor (his grungy,muscled,long-haired look is a killer),an equally sexy Chopra (she does such a good job of playing a strong-willed Marathi mulgi that you overlook her immaculate French manicure,almost),and an Amol Gupte as the parochial Bhope who can always act if his directorial aspirations don’t get off the ground (he’s the one who started Taare Zameen Par,which Aamir Khan took over).

I came away with a stunning build-up,some spectacular sequences and terrific music. But from a Vishal film,I wanted the full monty.