Monday, July 4, 2011

Delhi (Under)Belly

A movie which dares to calls Arse, गांड and not a sanitised पिछवाडा, has to be credited with honesty....and the movie is most honest in its subliminal exposure of its social underbelly....whether the dyed blonde prospective mommy-in-law or the gun brandishing brat chasing in a SUV on the National Highway....from the brothel visiting kinky but compassionate landlord to the exploitative jweller of Chandni Chowk....these are all typical Delhiites, replete with their asthetic sense, like the lipstick red Santro (a car produced by crossing an Ass, (the animal and not the anatomical reference here), with a cycle rickshaw). This city of opportunistic exploitation, no wonder can compel an aspiring serious journalist frustrated with Crime and Glamour, to look for some serious news, even if it interrupts the cunnilingus he is subjecting his girlfriend to, who in turn is surely enjoying it.

The movie itself takes the male bonding at a level different from the ultra HNI social circle of Dil Chahta Hai and academic preachery of 3 idiots to a closer to life frustrations, hardships and sensibilities of three educated working immigrants in the city, which gives them their equal space, without creating a xenophobic backlash....something the proverbial commercial capital of the country is guilty of harbouring. And of course, the fresh attitude towards physical passion as well as manipulation of Generation Y, especially the non-chalance of the female protagonists about it, without looking slutty.

Although one very naturally comes to expect people like Vir Das, Kunal Roy Kapoor, Vijay Raaz or even Shenaz to be part of such a tale, but Imran, given his lineage and school of film making he comes from, is a welcome change....May be it is a movie which his more illustrious uncle couldn't do himself and has made it for his heir apparent...or may be it is along the footsteps of another illustrious Khan who 20 years ago made villainy the main protagonist...

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