Sibling rivalry, gangsters and dirty politics… make up the main ingredients of Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminay”. Vishal Bharadwaj has maintained his usual style of film-making – that is, story telling, along with raising some important issues of the society. And with Kaminay, Vishal has raised a couple of issues.Cut then to New Bombay… sorry… Navi Mumbai where the story starts, with the narration by one of the two twin brothers – Charlie [Shahid Kapur]. Charlie is involved in the dirty business of fixing horse races. The company is led by three Bengali brothers. The company finds itself in a big loss as a result of a double-cross by one of their jockey. The jockey reveals a name – Francis who threatened him to fix the match against the Bengali Brothers. Now, the Bengali brothers along with Charlie, are in the quest of Francis – or rather as Charlie calls it – “Franfif”.
Over to Guddu [Shahid kapur again], the second of the twin brothers, who is sober, and works in an NGO. If his brother pronounces “S” as “F”, Guddu, also has a speech deformity and that is – Stammering. Guddu is involved in a love affair with a girl named Sweety [Priyanka Chopra], and is in a deep soup when he discovers that his girl is pregnant from him – at a time when he is not ready for marriage. Ill fate has it, when he discovers that his girl is the sister of a political leader [Amol Gupte] of Maharashtra, who hates North Indians, especially from UP, hailing in “Mumbai”. Sounds familiar? It did to me as well. Now, the UP-hater discovers that his sister is planning marriage with a UP boy, and is all set to catch hold of the boy.
The plot then unfolds with some gang wars taking place, gun shots, things falling, people running here and there, and the camera moving too fast to comprehend what’s going on. Understanding the gang-wars was much more difficult then understanding the software source-code in my office. All I know is that, Charlie, trying to find Franfif, gets involved with a fight with another gang involved in trafficking of cocaine, which is in a guitar case. Charlie somehow gets hold of this guitar case, and the gang is on the lookout for Charlie and of course the Guitar case. And as all the “twin-brother” plots, the politician’s gang who is on the lookout for Guddu, finds Charlie, and the Drug-trafficking gang, finds Guddu. What happens next is best explained by watching the movie.
With this plot, Vishal Bharadwaj has tried to raise two issues – Hating of the UP and North Indians hailing in Maharashtra is not called for, and that these politicians get involved in such a movement only to garner votes and not for the welfare of “Marathi Manus”.
A second issue that Vishal is trying to highlight is that of speech deformity. Charlie cannot pronounce “S”, and Guddu stammers. He has highlighted how speech deformity can be laughed at. Also, for the first time, I'm glad to see that stammering is projected in the right way, in a hindi movie. It’s projected as it is, and not as a comedy. The issues that stammering people tend to lock themselves in their own shell is also highlighted beautifully in a scene.
On acting front, Shahid as the two twin brothers is sincere in his role. He gives his best with both the roles. Priyanka as Guddu’s beloved has also a meaty role, and plays it quite well. The only other character to leave a mark on the audiences is the UP-hater politician – Bhope [Amol Gupte]. The actor plays the role quite well, and will get noticed.
Music is mediocre, with only one song – “Pehli baar mohabbat” catchy enough. The cinematograhy of the movie may sometimes make you feel dizzy. All in all, the movie may not be a must watch, but good enough for a one-time watching experience.
My Rating: **
