Thursday, March 30, 2006

Bluffmaster

This is one surprise package. For an O .Henry and Jeffrey archer aficionado, yaani ki, me, it was a treat. There we are, chugging along a la Bunty aur Babli (not comparing, but a con film coming close on the heels of B&B is bound to draw at least a mention of the latter) and then wham! We sit up and pay more attention. And at the end of the film, we want to go back and see everything again from a new perspective. So I’m not saying anything about the ending, so that all you folks who haven’t seen it repair the error immediately. OK, that was too gushing. Hmm. Fine. Relax. Sorry. My mistake (that’s quoting from B&B by the way). The big B said it was Aby baby’s best performance yet. Now that is gushing. It was not so much his performance as the story, the format and the dialogues.
Riteish was the surprise package. Never seen him in any movie before so can’t judge his performance, but I saw bits of Masti and was pretty turned off. But hey, in Masti, even Vivek Oberoi looked weird, so we can’t really form opinions based on that. Riteish somehow reminded me of Amol Palekar in all those 70’s films. Not hunky looking, but sort of ordinary-man-on-the-street. There is a lost look combined with mischief combined with naiveté----nice cocktail. The way he seems so eager to learn the ropes, and the way his enthusiasm first puts off Abhishek and then spurs him on---it was another facet of male bonding.
Priyanka Chopra was adequate( I think I qualify as a genuine reviewer now!). Nana Patekar--- na, na karte we admire him. It makes me want to see Taxi no. 9211.
The music is good---the remixes of the old songs are different in the sense that the flavour brought out their basic purpose, viz., the boys "desperately" enjoying themselves on their ill-gotten gains. The way they break into jigs after each heist, that too to tunes of the 70's-80's---their dance movements seem perfunctory, which suggests that they are dancing with skimpily clad girls, because it is the done thing!It seemed like the filmmaker is laughing at his ilk, or we are laughing at ourselves together, at our collective enjoyment of our cinema
Hope I have not flung in any spoilers---except the reference to O. Henry! Go figure!

3 Comments:

Blogger Shankari said...

Thanks for whetting the appetite. You like maybe I like too! :)

2/4/06 1:34 AM  
Blogger Castor aka Kiwilax said...

Hey, it so happens that I did see this movie in India, and I loved it! It was so un-Bollywoodish and different, esply the ending. And it helped that I do like Aby and Nana. I've since then recommended it to all my friends.

5/4/06 1:15 PM  
Blogger Shankari said...

I saw this movie on the strength of your reco. - liked it ;)


Hey, hope you didn't actually see 9211 - it was gawdawful :(

29/6/06 7:13 PM  

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