OYE LUCKY, LUCKY OYE!
CAST: Abhay Deol, Paresh Rawal, Neetu Chandra, Manu Rishi, Richa Chadha, Manjot Singh
DIRECTOR: Dibakar Banerjee
This film could also have been called How To Steal Millions and Win Hearts. Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! is the story of Lucky Singh, stealer of hearts and cash in equal measure. And TV sets, and music systems, and cameras and cutlery. Plus, in a lovely little touch, a pesky Pomeranian.
Dibakar Banerjee's second, after his Khosla Ka Ghosla, is as Delhi as his first, and as sharply written. Lucky, product of a low-income Delhi “clony”, does things a boy his age does: hang out with his pals, make eyes at a pretty girl next door, leap from one roof to another (festooned with antennas, rather than satellite dishes) in order to escape his wrathful father.
Lucky's (Abhay) journey from petty criminal to cool super chor is a lark, but Banerjee tells it with a sting. It's not all fun and games; it’s also shame and pain. Lucky's lad-hood is spot-on: the antipathy between the son and the father (Paresh, in the first of his three roles), the half-resentful, half-lustful air of the other woman his father has supplanted his mother with (“tere ko scooter chahiye na beta, mujhe bol”, she simpers, folding a mountainous bra from a pile of clothes she's picked off the line: this could well be the global story of a million boys’ first introduction to the all-powerful, all-mysterious mammaries, but that kind of printed salwaar kameez, that sort of cleavage, and that manner of bra-brandishing can only belong to a Dilli ki auntyji).
Lucky’s mantra — “kyon, nahin kar sakta kya” — which starts out as a dare, becomes the cornerstone of his life, which includes a bachpan ka dost and partner-in-crime (Manu Rishi), a seedhi saadhi girlfriend (Neetu) who keeps him grounded, and Gogi Bhai (Paresh again), who's perhaps the best drawn character in this film teeming with the — said Bhai is a stage entertainer-cum-chief sucker-up of a minister's bigda hua beta-cum banquet hall owner-cum prime fence and fixer: you can't be more Dilli than that.
The film feels stretched towards the end, but that's a minor quibble. Good performances all-round, and for once the not-so-Punjabi Abhay Deol's understated charm is overpowered by a couple of his co-stars: both Manjot Singh, the young Abhay, and Manu Rishi, who plays the best friend-turned shifty foe, are terrific. As is Paresh Rawal, who steals every scene.
Badi sahi picture hai, oye.

... contd.