Film: Kaminey

Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte, Chandan Roy Sanyal

Rating: ***

Running at: Inox (Forum, City Centre, Swabhumi)

What happened every time Dhen Te Na burst on your television screen? You blinked, squinted, blinked again and obstinately fought the cunning red glow to tell man from woman, blue from black, light from dark. Like the thirty seconds spun you around and held you choked between sounds, words and movements, Kaminey drags you with it as it hurtles forward with the frenzy of a roller coaster. When it gives your breath back, it hands you a smile as an apology.

Vishal Bhardwaj tickles darkness with such tenderness, that it cries to be understood, to be comforted almost. He knows exactly how, deep within our personas – tailored to perfect civility – we dart between vices, guilt, dreams and fears. And probably that’s why Kaminey, seems so dark yet warm, violent yet funny. His protagonists – twin brothers Charlie and Guddu – are held together by hatred. If they had their way, they would never have their paths cross. Charlie is a wicked, street-smart gambler with dreams of becoming a race-course bookie. Guddu is his timid, squeaky clean, sober twin who works for an NGO and is in love with a gangster’s sister Sweety. While Charlie frequents glitzy haunts of the uber-rich in his head, Guddu day dreams about the supposed comforts of a guiltless middle-class existence. But one fine day, Guddu realizes that in marrying Sweety he has left his life at the mercy of her murderous brother Bhope. And Charlie, by the trick of destiny, sets himself up against a chain of vicious international drug mafia. And if there’s one thing that they assume can save them and change their lives forever – it has to be a consignment of drugs that Charlie had stumbled upon by chance.

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