Kaminey - Movie Review

Published: August 14, 2009

By JENNIFER HOPFINGER

Starring Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Amole Gupte

Director Vishal Bhardwaj—best known for his film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Maqbool) and Othello (Omkara)—breaks new ground in Bollywood with his latest creation: a violent, convoluted, Tarantino-esque trip through the mean streets of Mumbai—stellar soundtrack and all. The Bard’s influence is apparent in Kaminey, particularly in the double role played by Shahid Kapoor, that of twins—a symbol of fragmented identity as common in Indian cinema as it is in Shakespeare’s plays. Here, the self-loathing brothers hate each other. Kapoor sheds his trademark boyishness and transforms into two world-weary men—one has a lisp and the other stutters—both broken in their own unique way.

Estranged from his twin, Charlie is alone in the world, except for his diminutive and slightly effeminate best friend, Mikhail. The two are soul mates, and there’s a hint of something sexual about their relationship in the way they embrace and in their breathless horseplay. Along with Mikhail, Charlie is a small-time hoodlum, who’s always looking for a shortcut. His dream is to run his own bookie operation, and in the meantime, he fixes horse races. When he sinks his entire savings into a race for the big score he needs, the jockey double-crosses him and he loses everything. After roughing up the jockey and fleeing the scene, Charlie steals an anti-narcotics squad car and finds a guitar case full of cocaine in the trunk. The case was supposed to be delivered by two crooked cops to a big-time drug dealer named Tashi, who’s planning to use the cocaine to pay for two enormous blood diamonds, called “the twins,” from two men from Africa. (Pairs pop up everywhere in the film.)

Charlie’s brother, Guddu, does street theater with his girlfriend Sweety—who is anything but—to promote AIDS awareness. Played by a de-glammed Priyanka Chopra, Sweety is as indomitable as her no-good family, and she bulldozes the reluctant Guddu into getting her pregnant and then marrying her. Sweety’s brother, Bhope (Amole Gupte), a thug with political aspirations (and symbolically, a diabetic), wants to get rid of Guddu because he promised his sister’s hand to the son of a wealthy developer in exchange for a large campaign contribution.

The crooked cops arrest Guddu thinking he’s Charlie, and Bhope pays a visit to Charlie looking for Guddu. Only the brothers can extricate each other from the desperate mess their lives have become, and their existential crisis culminates in a spectacular climax.

Kaminey is rated Must See.

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