Let’s say Guy Ritchie came up with yet another narrative bustling with a motley crew of characters whose paths cross in their quest for MacGuffins (we know how Guy loves multiple MacGuffins).
What if, the Coen Brothers then took over to add a few bizarre touches to this structure, made the oddball characters seem real, and added a touch of philosophy to make this pulp fiction look like a commentary on human nature.
And then, let’s say Quentin Tarantino took that material, rubbed his hands in glee and played around with the linearity of storytelling restricting his “answers first, questions later” approach strictly within individual sequences that play out chronologically, all building up to an end – which all these filmmakers love – That Bloody Mexican Standoff.
Now, imagine what happens when Vishal Bhardwaj exorcises their ghosts, shakes off those multiple personalities, and does to that material what he did to Shakespeare through his earlier films: Reinterpret the characters by rooting them firmly in a credible Indian milieu and make everything about that world come alive.
What you get is a movie where every single character, including the littlest of boys, turns out to be a dirty rotten scoundrel. A film where even the nicest ones stay grey.
Read the rest of the review on the official site
Sons of guns have a blast
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MADRAS INK. 
I must confess that I hadn’t blogged into your review before taking on Kaminey. But as I drove back from the night show, I felt tempted to write to you sunrise today. But Kaminey, I find that you’ve copy pasted my piece-to-be to its last four-letter word! Of course, I feel denied and find it difficult to add even a lil’ so early now. I might return after the second viewing.
Just one supplement: I found the politics of using an out-of- wedlock pregnancy very interesting. Particularly subtle is Vishal’s craft as he moves his characters’ need to formalise this relationship post-pregnancy even as he gets the spectator to laugh over the very need to do so. A masterpiece of illegitimacy in a conflict of the illegitimates.
As the politics of hate has overrun the metro, its two commoners can only brave their love for one another secretively and barely stammer across the Bumbai-Mumbai divide. The pregnancy is thus a deliberate subversion that defies both, common sense and common science. Born out of a lovelock, it is therefore a mishap even as it is an act of rebellion, a current necessity even as it is may appear redundant for those who have lived the city’s cosmopolitan history.
At one level therefore, while the urgency of protagonists to institutionalise their relationship is understandable given the illegitimate political class that is chasing them down, the film screeches to an Orwellian climax: All pigs are equally illegitimate. But some pigs are more illegitimate than others! No?
>>Particularly subtle is Vishal’s craft as he moves his characters’ need to formalise this relationship post-pregnancy even as he gets the spectator to laugh over the very need to do so.
Fantastic observation, Sir.
This is why you are the Guru and I will always remain the Sishya! 🙂
A major problem with Vishal Bharadhwaj is that he is threatening to make film making his own craft. Kaminey is likely to deter others from pursuing excellence anymore, leaving them only the box office to fight over!