That’s what happens when you loose touch with the Bard. You become a Tarantino and then you produce Pulp Fiction with traces of Bard thrown in for good measure, as an act of saving grace but then you are not Bard yourself Vishaj, are you? When I was swamped under the barrage of SMS forwards about wine, whine and finally swine flu…Mumbai multiplexes were forced to lie down on a ventilator again for the first weekend of Kaminey. Now I wonder who the swine was who did not want to UTV to make any money on Kaminey.
Monday seems to be fairly unusual day for movie release but its one of the most awaited movie of the year and you are gonna attend a stampede if it comes to that to get your seats in time. After a wait worth 1 plate stale samosa, one half finished ice less luke warm Pepsi and some cold popcorns, the movie started. Kaminey let me down from frame 1. It is not a tribute to anybody but an act of self indulgence which caused Sanjay Leela Bhansali to make the blue film Sawariya.
Well there are so many characters in the plot that the pivot is lost. Till the time I got used to this bratty boob shaking Priyanka and was almost going to start ogling her, she lost the show to Shahid who in turn surrendered to the bloke to played Mikhail who bowed down to the lord Amol. Rest of the cast was accidental and not incidental. The hype about the movie is just too much and it started coming out of ears. What I missed in the film was a story line which had some meat in it.
Vishal made Maqbool and Omkara where he didn’t need a story but only an interpretation. He made children’s film Makdee and Blue Umbrella where in he used imagination. Kaminey is has no Vishalesque sequence or acting in it. Now, we can beat the chest and say that this is a tribute to Tarantino and a deliberate attempt to move away from the kind of cinema you make but the bitter truth is that this claim holds no water. Kaminey has a weak storyline.
Another miss was the music. As I am told that Dhantane is a sound that Vishal has used in one of the children’s songs that he had composed long back and he just brought it back to life and boy, this resurrection is amazing. The song is just amazing and incredibly beautiful. The psychedelic styling, Vishal Dadlani and Sukhvinder crooning and Vishal Bhardwaj’s own original composition…but the song ends almost abruptly. Fatak and Raat ke dhai baje were forced down the viewer’s throat in the movie, the other songs inconsequential. The title track had given me some hope but it was an almost waste.
There are far too many names thrown on the screen. Guddu alias Sanjay Kumar Sharma from Barabankwi, Charlie, Sweety, Bhope Bhau, Tope, Mikhail, Tashi, Lele, Lobo and some oher Johnys who came and went. Who played a better part? It was difficult to comprehend. Shahid has come of age and looks off Kareena Kapoor. The boy has grown in to a man but still lacks the finesse the role where he stammers. Interrogation scene was the best one that he did. As a person with a lisp, his vocab is going to stay till Thursday with a lot of people. Priyanka is hot, sexy, sweet and yes worth it. She lived her part. Was it the role or love? Amol Gupte, makes a come back after doing some obscure movies and forgettable roles in some of the NFDC funded ones. He also worked with Aamir in Holi and since then they remained friends till Aamir took over. Rest of the characters were so average that it is difficult to remember their names only a couple of hours after the movie.
What also works with the film is the camera work by Tasaduq Hussain. Camera loved every frame and vice versa. From tight close ups to mid shots…everything was in sync. Shahid And Mikhail dancing in the rain was just so perfect. Vishal lost the plot in the second half when justification of each artist begins to unveil. I had a problem with Shahid Kapoor’s catharsis. It was funny, nostalgic and has no reason. Some of the characters, who had a role to play, disappear. Some new ones are added and then they disappear too. Since none of the character artist got anything worth celebrating, I don’t want to write about them.
Over all, it’s not a bad film but it is not an outstanding film, and it doesn’t look like a film that can be called as A tribute to Tarantino. It is ok, just about a product which is different than the usual run of the mill that we are in the habit of producing.
