Kyunki Kaminey kutti cheez nahin hai

When I talked to my friend Rick recently, I figured out Kaminey had become for him and most of his college mates what Dil Chahta Hai had become for us when we were in college. We would quote lines from the film, have hairstyles like Aamir's Aakash, dance like Saif Ali Khan did in Woh ladki hai kahaan and even try and catch operas. Yes, it was that deep. Now, Dil Chahta Hai has stood the test of time and it's still as loved as it was in 2001.

And that's why I think Kaminey is the wrong film to obsess with. I know I am in a minority now. Besides Khalid Mohamed and myself, every critic in the country have hailed it as our Citizen Kane, our answer to Pulp Fiction and god knows what. I even read someone calling Vishal Bhardwaj a better filmmaker than Quentin Tarantino. Hmmm... The audience hasn't lapped it up. Kaminey has doen better than Omkara but that's not saying much. Let's forget the box office, which even rejected a film like Luck By Chance (my fave film of 2009 till now). Let's just take a look at the problems I have with Kaminey and if you disagree, I would love to hear from you. That's why the comment box is there, below.

First confession: I do like Kaminey. It's quite a good watch. There are lovely moments in the film. Some great performances, especially Shahid, Chandan, Priyanka, Amol... I love the background score, which plays around Dhan te nan. And I admire the cinematography by Tasadduq Hussain. It's deliciously dark and super heady.

I think in a film like Kaminey which is basically a multi-character thriller laced with dark humour, every character has to be bloody unique. If you look at Tarantino's films and a few of Coen Brothers' flicks, which belong to the same genre, the characters make the movie.

Just take Kill Bill. Now Lucy Liu is just two chapters in the 10-chapter film. And she must have a total of one page of dialogues. And hoe does Tarantino set O Ren Ishii up? She is a Chinese-Japanese-American who saw her parents murdered at age nine and now runs the Tokyo Yakuza. She has 44 bodyguards who call themselves the Crazy 88. And she is super-touchy about her ancestry and can take your head if you have a problem with that.

Let's move to Reservoir Dogs - Michael Madsen's Mr Blonde. The Daily Telegraph in an article describes the character as "Besuited alpha male, particularly famed for impromptu ear-severing. A charming psychopath who likes to simmer and sit tight. Perks up when obscure Dylan-esque Seventies pop hits come on the radio and has a habit of flicking away cigarette butts just before something really nasty happens. Approach with due trepidation."

Let's tighten it further. John Turturro's Jesus in The Big Lebowski by the Coens. He has one scene in the film and you know everything about him. That he is the best bowler around. That he does a Hotel California jig before and after his bowling act. That he was once a peder-ass and had to go door to door in Hollywood to tell everyone he was a peder-ass!

Now, tell me one character in Kaminey whom you know something about. Okay, three Bengali mental brothers who play around with guns. Well if they are from the underworld, that's what they will do. Isn't it? Mikhail, such an important character in the film, what do we know about him? That he snorts coke. That's it? Yes, that's it. And he is not even made to look different. In fact, in the rain scene, it gets difficult to identify which one's Shahid and which one's Chandan.

The other villains... Lobo and Lele. Okay, one talks less and the other talks more. What else? What else? I can't think of. Can you?

Bhope Bhau... This character was getting interesting. There was some work behind it. He is a baddie turning politician by chanting Jai Maharashtra. So when he actually agreed to take money from Shahid and switch to another party, it really made him slyly sinister. But then he wanted to take out Shahid after getting the money. Lo kar lo baat! Ctrl + z, we call it.

The worst ones? Tashi and his sidekick. That is vintage Bollywood. He sits and smokes pipe. He doesn't like dogs, he liked bitches. Come on!

When you start thinking which actor is good and which actor is not, that means the character hasn't worked. Even if you look at Charlie and Guddu, the stress is mostly on the way they talk, on the lisp and the stammer. There is a back story, there is a dream sequence but you only go back with the 'main f ko f bolta hoon'. That's a stylistic device, not a character detail. Character details are what is totally missing in Kaminey and stops it short from a great film. I am not getting into the complicated exposition, the disjointed edit and all that. Just the characters... they do not belong to the world Vishal wanto create. We all know they are supposed to be 'bad' and they are all after the cocaine and the diamonds and the money but give us the little chewy details. The best scene of the film is when Shahid has to sing his story to Lobo and Lele. And that again is about the speech.

That's why Kaminey failed me. It tells us it's smart but then turns out to be totally Bollywood. For that, I prefer Om Shanti Om. Unpretentious and totally enjoyable.