(Note: In no particular order)
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye
Abhay Deol plays Lucky - a charming, aspirational thief who at different times nonchalantly, and/or brazenly, steals his way up the ladder of high life. His audacious exploits of daylight thievery seem to suggest to us and him that he has people figured out for the most part. Until, one day, his one weakness, that desire for some kind of recognition by society in general and high society in particular, lands him in his most sticky situation yet. Still, if this is the same Lucky you've been following through the movie, you can be sure there's nothing he doesn't back himself to not get out of.
The supporting cast is wonderful, lead by Paresh Rawal and Manu Rishi. Abhay is fast becoming the poster-boy of "multiplex", or small-budget, Hindi cinema - a movement that deserves fully to not be labelled "Bollywood". He's never going to top popularity charts like the Khans and Bachchans with their movies that either outright lift themes, situations, even whole movies from Hollywood (thereby fittingly being labeled Bollywood) or repititively, regressively and non-sensically depict a hackneyed-moralled Indian culture that perhaps only exists in their movies and in the warped minds of non-resident indians. Whatever. So What. (So ends my usual pet rant about "Bollywood" movies and actors in general - for this post only though.) Quality cinema watchers can trust movies Abhay Deol is in though.
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye is also Dibakar Banerjee's second (?) directorial venture after the fantastic Khosla ka Ghosla. Very Delhi both. Very wonderful both.
Most recently, he played the turn of the new century Devdas in Anurag Kashyap's (Black Friday) Dev D. I still haven't caught Dev D, but I plan to very soon. Something tells me, it's going to be a blast.
Mithya
Which brings us to another poster boy of "multiplex" Hindi cinema, Ranvir Shorey. Mithya is the story of a regular guy played by Shorey, who unfortunately by a quirk of fate, finds out that he's a mafia don doppelganger. Sure enough, one day, he finds himself, and not by choice, in the situation of being forced to take the don's place, unknown to most including those closest to the don - something he, in spite of looking like the don, is totally unsuited to the job. Along the way he finds true love of sorts. His life doesn't get any easier though.
Sure, we've seen similar themes in the Amitabh classic "Don", and there are shades of situations from John Woo's "Face/Off" as well, among others. But Ranvir is as earnest as independent actors can be. Neha Dhupia as the love interest is also surprisingly decent - she needs more movies like these. Mithya is reasonably well-made.
Ranvir also did a super job in Khosla ka Ghosla, and Pyar Ke Side Effects (which I finally watched recently) as well.
Vinay Pathak
The third posterboy of "multiplex" Hindi cinema. In Khosla ka Ghosla, Mithya, Manorama - Six Feet Under, the Chinatown tribute, with Abhay Deol, in Bheja Fry, and recently in Rajat Kapur's Dasvidaniya, Kapur incidentally another earnest filmmaker and actor, among others. Pathak was also in the thriller, Johnny Gaddar. He's another actor whose movie choices are pretty much spot on.
Welcome to Sajjanpur
A satirical take on life in small town India, that covers a wide gamut of socio-political issues including poverty, illiteracy, conservatism vs modernism, widow-remarriage, dirty politics, among several others.
2 comments:
Loved Manorama, like him in last local and Oye lucky was fun - I am all for Abhay Deol continuing to do whatever he is doing - almost ironic that a Deol is becoming today's Farookh Sheikh/Amol Palekar.
Love Vinay too though some roles are becoming too Bheja fry'ish
the jury's out on Ranvir. i think he is good as a backup but did not lik him a whole lot in side-effects.
not sure about seeing dev-d - not fan of the Devdas fanchise. Still need to catch up on Johny Gaddar
And I still love my Bachchans and Khans - especially lil B.
forget the point to this comment though:)
I guess what I like about Ranvir are his choice of films (at least his recent work). His roles though may be getting a little stereo-typical of sorts - the tragi-comic loser personality. He's capable of better.
It is ironic that its a Deol leading the "multiplex cinema" effort. What are the odds of that? I hate to give props to "star-kids" since they have it far, far easier than the plethora of struggling aspirants.
The Khans and Bachchans are slaves somewhat to their own images (refer to "Zafar Khan" in "Luck By Chance" spoofing Shah Rukh's recent statement: "I'm not Shah Rukh. I work for Shah Rukh!" - or something like that). They hardly seem very resistant to "starring" in bastardized Hollywood remakes or regressive NRI shaadi-type movies (ironical that - coming from an NRI!;) ). Sure - escapist cinema has a place, given the depressing circumstances all around. But what of folks who want to escape from escapist cinema?
Besides, Mithunda movies are far better escape than yet-another-Punjabi-shaadi (again ironical coming from me!;)).
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