In the review I wrote for ’The usual suspects’ I mentioned the movie is a kind of one which prompts the watcher to claim its one of his/her favorites no matter what others would think of. This was year 2003.
Kaminey, I feel would prompt the watcher to claim its one of the best Hindi movies of 2009. Not because he/she liked it. Not because the movie is good. But the tabloids and majority of the movie watchers claim it is good.
After watching movies such as ’A Wednesday’, ’13B’, there were hopes that Bollywood is taking a different turn. But ’Kaminey’ brings that turn to a dead halt putting Bollywood right in its place to where it belongs.
The movie can be classified into any genre - Drama, Comedy (am sure one laughs quite a lot of times during the movie), Suspense (the only suspense revolves around Priyanka Chopra who keeps revealing the hidden truths one after the other), Action (no fights whatsoever), Adventure (perhaps yes) or one of those recent Harry Potter movies where dark graphics spoilt the movie taking the charm away from the novel.
How are the thrills? Freaking’ lame! How many times can one think ’This is stupid’. Then mentally adjust quipping "This is Vishal Bhardwaj movie . So perhaps it is not."
In my opinion, this movie is what gives Bollywood a bad name. It resembles the dark films of Guy Ritchie such as ’Lock stock & two smoking barrels’ (from which the story has been copied) & ’Rock’n’Rolla’ without having any originality.
What is the Plot?
Please refer to the ’Story’ section.
How about the acting? Dud!
The movie has extreme variety of actors. The likes of Shahid Kapoor at one end showing promises of ’good acting’ apart from a ’six packs’. And the likes of Priyanka Chopra at the other end who is perhaps one of Bollywood’s worst actresses when it comes to such roles. You get tired of asking the question ’Why did Vishal Bhardwaj waste such a character by using Priyanka Chopra?’. Perhaps the movie needed an uplift with high value stars and hence Priyanka Chopra could have been caste. What a herculean waste!!!
In a movie revolving around gangsters and drug lords;choosing a character is very important. Vishal bhardwaj should watch Joe Pesci’s portrayal in ’Goodfellas’. It’s easy to see why Pesci won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Its difficult to believe anyone other than Pesci would have added such a vigour to the role. In fact his role was just adequate and almost short like his Oscar speech ’This is an honor and a privilege, Thank you’. In Kaminey, I hardly remember any actor who fits the characters. Even Shahid Kapoor appears as a misfit. A pair of actors termed as ’Bengali brothers’ appear in the movie. Nobody knows what relevance they have in the movie except firing some bullets in the end.
What is the Story?
Please refer to the ’Plot’ section.
Ending?
You might have come across bad-endings, goofed up endings, harry potter-ish endings, topsy-turvy endings, happy endings, the Ramgopal Varma endings (which are beginnings actually), neat-endings. Welcome to the world of ’Kaminey’ ending.
Who is the central character in the movie?
A guitar. Or perhaps the guitar’s case.
Editing, Cinematography, Screenplay, Direction?
Rumpled. Unfocussed. Fundamentally dumb. Arcane.
What’s the moral of the story?
1.Just by growing long hairs or wearing jarry costumes does not make one a rock guitarist. The trade off to become a rock guitarist in many cases is almost as costly one’s life itself. Vishal bhardwaj cannot become a Quentin Tarantino with ’Kaminey’. It takes much more then ’Kaminey’ to qualify for making an attempt to become a Quentin Tarantino.
- Same as ’1’.
What happens in the movie?
Twin brothers - one good and one not so good cross their paths. One mistaken for the other for marrying a girl who is the sister of a ’Maharastrian gangster’. The other gets mistaken for doing a double cross in a drug deal. In the end both getaway with what they do and the movie ends.
With a total running time around 2hrs and 10 mts, few notable things in the movie are the songs (Dan-E-Tan, Raat ki Daayi Bhaje), some cliches and a different background score.