I finished watching Corporate. And immediately I realized that if someone from an engg. college would have written a movie script on a similar theme, he would have probably come out with this, because of two reasons: his hormones are in overdrive caused by lack of female company, and he knows nothing about the corporate world.
Plot details: Corporate is about rival companies who try to outsmart each other through a set of devious double-crossing moves, and their big (pun intended), bad (pun not intended) henchmen. As a close friend of mine once said, Bhandarkar actually wanted to make a pornographic film, but he realized midway that that would not get him into Page three, so he made Corporate instead. The film starts with one of the guys who is a member of the board of governors, overtly seducing one of the nubile girls in office, promising her an out-of-turn promotion. It’s not very clear if she’s his underling or not, but who cares, in the big bad world of Corporate politics, anything goes! While the chairman of one company is the stony-faced Rajat Kapoor, who could do with a few expressions other than that of complacency, the chairman of the rival is a god-loving, and fraud-baba-loving dedicated husband, played effectively by Raj Babbar. Rajat Kapoor also has for a friend and confidante, a news reporter who arranges young, probably underage nymphomaniacs for him. She also promises him the award for the business icon of the year, which she fails to live up to, resulting in him calling her a bloody pimp, partly to use the word and partly to absolve himself of some of the guilt. The rival company’s chief operating officer is lecherous (but obviously), and letches at women of all kinds, but his biggest love is the Bong bombshell (Bipasha Basu) from Kolkata, Nishigandha (shortened understandably to Nishi) who is in love with a loser of a man (played by K K Menon quite adroitly), who quit his job and ran away to London after failing in it. KK however returns in time to handle the big project of acquiring the PSU ahead of their rivals and is to be ably assisted by Nishi in doing so. Thrown in for good measure is the finance minister of the state, who screws the top item girl in Bollywood, through the lecherous COO who understandably has the required connections. Later in the movie, the lecherous COO is seduced by the bong bombshell, COO of the rival company, and of course, dirty man that he is, immediately falls for her trap. She however refuses to let him sleep with her, resulting in an overmuch of testosterone in his body. He later falls into her trap, when he goes into a disco and falls for a model with luscious assets, and takes her to his own room for a paltry sum. Once the dirty man is asleep, the bong bombshell, who obviously has an alliance with the sultry model, comes back to the room, armed with a USB device, and copies all the files related to the project from the rival COO’s computer to her portable hard drive. Of course, she knows his password. This obviously results in the Sehgal group gleefully assuming control of the PSU which was what they had always been looking for. But there is trouble for the bong bombshell. Through a strange mix of unbelievable coincidences and circumstances, she gets pregnant at about the same time as the Sehgal group gets into trouble on account of increased levels of pesticides in the mint-based soft drink, and to guard the reputation of the company, she is coerced by KK into accepting full responsibility for the crime. Of course, this results in her getting jailed, and a substantial amount of emotion and tears. And finally, the loser who had fled to London the last time feels incompetent and incapable of facing life with a straight face and leaps off the top floor of his building. There is a lingering suspicion that the death was not a suicide but a murder, made clearer by the sarcastic voice of Atul Kulkarni in the background towards the end of the movie, but does not clarify things, resulting in you wondering – “OK! What the hell happened?"
Don’t get me wrong, this is not as terrible a movie as the plot makes it out to be. It is definitely a lot better than the regular Bollywood trash, and could make for interesting viewing if you are in college or have never used a computer in your life, and don’t work in an office. The director, to his credit, tries to show the murky world of higher corporate circles, which admittedly a lot of the common populace has very little idea about. And there is a feeling that this movie is an indirect jab at a very prominent Indian company. So kudos to him for that. But if the director had paid a little attention to the fact that some of the viewers are educated and intelligent people who might have experience of working in a corporate environment, who use computers daily, he would have done a little more research and paid a little more attention to factual accuracy, and yes, spared us the childish boardroom meetings with the unbelievably stupid presentations and the hackneyed corporate jargon spoken by the majority of the cast. No, corporate people don’t talk like that, and they are not stiff and aloof when they meet people and officials of rival companies. Boardroom meetings are about brainstorming and not about cliché. And lest I forget, passwords are corporate policy, and one does not need to type when a file transfer is already initiated. Steamy scenes mostly sell a movie, but when it is shot with an intention to titillate, it somehow defeats the purpose. After Page 3 and Chandni Bar, I had expected a little more honesty. Because, although the corporate world and political clout are practially inseparable, there are limits to it; and keeping within a few boundaries would have made the film realistic - and honest.
There are a few standout performances, but only individual. KK Menon is good in portraying the spineless vice president, and Bipasha Basu, in spite of the large number of films she has done till date, still doesn’t know how to act. Lilette Dubey has a very small role to play, and shows sufficient outrage, emotional heartbreak and cleavage when accused of being a pimp by Rajat. Standing out amongst all of these was the oily, lecherous state finance minister, who probably was at ease all through the movie and played the role impeccably. And, in a strange similarity with Page 3, the best parts of the movie are the conversations between the orderlies, and the peons; the drab commentary, almost desultory in nature, still manages to enchant and make you smile. To Bhandarkar’s credit, he had the guts to come out with a movie which jabs at the corporate world, and to showcase the dark side with a great deal of enthusiasm. But the uncanny similarities of the plot to that of Page 3 dim the effect of the movie. A watchable movie, but just about that.