Johnny Gaddaar

DIRECTOR: Sriram Raghavan

Happy days are here. After last week's stylish thriller, the first-of-its-kind Manorama Six, Feet Under, comes the crime caper Johnny Gaddaar. The two films couldn't be more different in treatment and execution, but couldn't be more similar in taking the newly emerging genre, overlaid with a rich dark comic vein, to a level not seen in Hindi cinema before.

Five cons get together for a big job; each has to raise a sum involving several zeroes, and put it together to make a handsome kitty. One of them turns traitor, leaving a trail of bloody bodies in his wake.

One-line plot, two-hours-and-some of taut suspenseful drama. Sriram Raghavan lives up to the promise he'd shown in Ek Hasina Thi, and makes his second a much better film. Part of the enjoyment lies in the motley gang he comes up with: the 50-something Seshadri (Dharmendra) dreaming of his long-dead wife and listening to the taped songs sung by her even as he plans the next big one; the quiet hitman Shiva (Daya), son of an Alzheimer-ed mother, and silent admirer of her nurse; the flamboyant Pakya (Vinay Pathak) who fancies himself as a card-sharp, and lives with his beauty-parlour owning wife (Ashwini); the querulous lounge bar owner Shardul (Zakir) whose young, pretty wife is in love with Vikram (Neil), the fifth member of the group, who is the youngest, sharpest and the most ambitious.

Raghavan nails the grimy, grotty feel of a James Hadley Chase novel, where everyone is is either bad, greedy, villainous, plain amoral, or simply, a combination of all of the above. The colours are bold, the palette bolder, and barring one overlong scene featuring a hysterical Ashwini, everything zips along, dotted with a jolt here, a surprise there. And the throbbing score fits right in.

So do the actors. Dharmendra, who mouths this classic line " it's not the age, it's the mileage', could be speaking for himself. Vinay, who adeptly presses his wife's feet (her nails painted an outré black, befitting a suburban beautician) is terrific. As is Zakir Husain who's always sounding off at Vinay but is deeply fond of him (they are blood brothers, see, so what if they are criminals?). They make you believe.

And above all, Neil, son of Nitin, grandson of the legend, who combines seeming innocence and guile with a chilling gift of killing, to make one of the most memorable debuts in recent times. He is never loud; he blends in, and he stands out.