Badmaash Comapany

Rating: ***

A gang of four,three guys and a gal,get together with a one-point agenda : to get rich quick. The story,for reasons we will not reveal,opens in the pre-liberalised 90s. Our filibusters need to play fast and loose in an India where smugglers were still kings,and when cussed customs officers could make or break a foreign trip returnee trying to make a quick dash through the green channel.

The ‘Badmaash Company’,made up of Karan ( Kapoor),Bulbul ( Sharma),Chandu ( Das),and Zing ( Chang) ,dashes in and out of assorted channels,crossing lines and boundaries with impunity.

The money comes rolling in. With it,arrive problems. Karan’s upright working-class father gives him an ultimatum : be good or be gone. The friends move off to new pastures,and ricochet from one too-clever scheme to another,till they are delivered unto the time-honoured conclusion that all crooks are given,still,in Hindi cinema : work is worship,even and especially in America,the land of opportunity.

Debutant director Parmeet Sethi,whom we first saw in Yashraj’s ‘Diwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ as the guy who loses the girl,has come up with a film which has a real story,credible characters,and,most importantly,growth graphs. Each member of the ‘badmaash’ company starts somewhere,and reaches somewhere,and remains consist to their inherent nature during the journey. This is a combination which used to be the hallmark of Yashraj movies,when they knew what they were doing. Sethi knows these people,the setting. We do too : they speak in tongues we recognize.

The performances are all competent : Sharma delivers on the promise she held out in ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’,Das finally gets a role he can do justice to,Chang makes a nice addition to the cast,and Kapoor makes up for the lousy roles he’s been showing up in,post ‘Kaminey’. And Anupam Kher and Pawan Malhotra are their usual efficient selves.

The problem—yes,there is one– is that this film is too long,and therefore inconsistent. By the second half,we’ve seen all the tricks the gang is capable of. Instead of fast-tracking us through,they are laid out in too much dragging detail all over again. And again. Plus,the conversion of Karan,from being an arrogant so-and-so to a humble,please-forgive-me-I’ll-be-good-from-now is too sudden.

Still,’Badmaash Company’ gives us time and place,things we rarely experience in Hindi cinema. And it is,for the most part,engaging. Enough reasons to watch a film.