Fpriderman...fpiderman.....Kaminey Reviewed!!

There are movies that are nice and sweet …like a lullaby. And there are movies which give you a good shake and ask you to hop onto the roller coaster. Kaminey would fall in the latter as would Johhny Gaddar. Not a national award winner, but an entertainer nevertheless.

Kaminey is the story of twin brothers (Shahid Kapur) who have a fall-out. Predictably, one is a gangster and the other works with an NGO on AIDS awareness etc. But this is where the predictability ends. The movie moves through a series of events that are connected in some bizarre way and if you don’t pay attention for five minutes, you may lose the plot. So you strap on your seat belt and race along with the characters, impatient to know where the next scene will take them.

The movie wins on two counts. As everyone is falling over themselves to tell you, it brings to India the Quentin Tarantino style of making movies. Racy, edgy, quick cuts. Hand-held cameras used for many scenes, the camera too close to the character’s face for your comfort, shot mainly in the night, with a lot of rain. It is not cutting edge but it sure cuts through the chase. The movie doesn’t proclaim itself to be a film about Mumbai Mafia, neither is it a thriller. It is a car whose breaks have failed and is swerving into the traffic with you hanging on to your seat.



The second reason why the movie works is the brilliant characterization. There is barely anyone in the film who has not been given a certain character which makes him/her stand apart. Shahid does brilliantly. Sweet in some shots where you want to cuddle him like a teddy bear and rakish in some where he’s the bad guy your mother warned you about! Priyanka also plays her part well – the Marathi fireball, ready to take on the world for her love. But it is the gangsters who each help make this collage beautiful. Bhope Bhau – the crazy wannabe politician who can sell everything from his ideology to his sister, the Bengali brothers, who each look so non gangster like but often collapse into hysterics with a joke only they understand, Tashi – the suave gangster who deals with the Africans and doesn’t dirty his hands with Indian Mafia and my favorite – Mikhail (played by Chandan Roy Sanyal) who is forever doped, crazed out of his wits and treats Charlie (the Gangster Shahid) like his brother.

It isn’t an award winner, it may not even be a box office super duper hit, but Kaminey reminds you somewhat of the joker in Dark Knight…where you are repulsed by his face, you are intrigued by his antics and his dark humor and you just cant wait to get more.

Go watch it!!

Rating: 4 on 5

Paisa Wasool Moment: Charlie singing Spiderman with Mikhail…only that Charlie has a lisp – he says ‘f’ for every ‘s’…so he jumps around singing ‘fpiderman…fpiderman…’

PS – Did I mention I completely LOVE the music...and cant get enough of Dhan te nan....