Kaminey

Now Playing: Vishal Bhardwaj - Pehli Baar Mohabbat

When Zac Efron decides it’s time to shed his pretty-boy image for something more macho, he would do well to find a project like Kaminey, which manages to simultaneously make a hard man out of Shahid Kapoor and establish his acting chops.

Charlie is a small-time thug with big-time dreams while Guddu is an earnest social worker who passes out prophylactics to prostitutes. They’re also identical twins who haven’t spoken to each other in years and have non-identical speech impediments – Charlie lisps and Guddu stammers. Is it a coincidence that Charlie, who admits to taking the fast and dirty road to riches over the slow and steady, turns his s’s to f’s? Probably, but the picture is full of tiny delightful details like that one.

Vishal Bharadwaj abandons the Shakespearean roots of his previous films for a Tarantino-esque sensibility and a denouement that seems like vintage Guy Ritchie. As good as Omkara and Maqbool were, it’s nice to see that the director is capable of playing in a different sandbox. The acting is generally good; apart from the above-mentioned Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra shines as Guddu’s pregnant girlfriend Sweety and Amol Gupte is riveting as her politician /goonda brother, professional marathi manoos Bhope Bhau. Chandan Roy Sanyal has less screentime as Mikhail, the youngest member of a Bengali fraternity of crime, but his relationship with Charlie is fascinatingly ambiguous, fraternal with a definite homoerotic subtext.

There were three things about Kaminey that I really liked. First, there were actual, literal Chekov’s guns – I actually squealed, “CHEKOV!” when the guns made their second appearance. Secondly, there’s a scene where Guddu is being held by a pair of corrupt policement for questioning. At this point, the audience expects violence, pliers, electrodes, or any manner of torture from the policemen, who are desperate anything to elicit the information they believe Guddu has – which he doesn’t, as they really want Charlie. To complicate things further, there’s Guddu’s stutter, which worsens with stress. However - instead of increasing the physical inducement to get Guddu to talk, the senior policemen tells Guddu to sing, which reduces his stammer drastically and is not, surprise, surprise, a segue to a song sequence. Finally, while the hilarious irony of a guy who preaches safe sex knocking up his girlfriend never ceases to amuse, the Guddu- Sweety relationship is, though stormy, tender and loving. She manages him, and he’s happy to let her, and you really feel that these two crazy kids might make it after all, despite all the kaminey around them.