Filmi Geek

Cheeni kum (2007)

चीनी कम

I am always pleased to review a film while it's playing in theaters, so I can add my small voice to the cacophony of reviews encouraging or discouraging others from seeing it.  In the case of Cheeni kum ("Less sugar"), my verdict is:  get out and see this film, if you are near a theater where Hindi films are shown.  It is a funny, quirky, and winning romance.

Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is a salty and egotistical chef who runs what he calls "finest Indian restaurant in London."  He's a perfectionist who rules his kitchen with an iron fist, not hesitating to dress down his staff for small errors, or to berate a young English waiter for failing to master the precise pronunciation of the names of the dishes.  When a visitor from Delhi, the no-nonsense Nina Verma (Tabu), sends one of his signature dishes back to the kitchen - complaining that it's too sweet, of all things - Buddha is mortally insulted, but he is also charmed.  The flirtation grows serious, and before long Buddha must navigate a minefield strewn with his own insecurities - he's a full thirty years Nina's senior - not to mention the objections of Nina's cricket-obsessed, Gandhist father (Paresh Rawal).  Supporting Buddha in this adventure are his sprightly mother (Zohra Sehgal) and a tiny little girl named Sexy (Swini Khara), Buddha's frail, leukemic next door neighbor.

Though it is an older-man, younger-woman romance, Cheeni kum thoroughly avoids any hint of the ickiness that sometimes pervades such stories like a bad odor.  The romance works because Nina is a grown-up, not a desperate and confused girl; she enters the romance with eyes open and without desperation or any sort of  daddy complex.  And Buddha treats her equally, not paternally; he has a great and easily bruised ego, but no excessive machismo, and there is no sense that he feels entitled to the attention of a beautiful young woman.  The power dynamic is clear from the character's early interactions; Nina has the upper hand, and so any inherent imbalance arising from the age differences is neutralized.

Cheeni kum isn't coy about the age difference, either; it's the main source of conflict in the film, and the film addresses it head-on, either in comic scenes (Buddha surreptitiously removing candles from his birthday cake), or slightly cliché ones (Buddha:  "Thirty-four - very old."  Nina:  "Sixty-four - very young.").  In one very funny moment, Nina fails to suppress a giggle as she reminds Buddha that he's not her father's age - he's actually six years older.  The side characters, too, emphasize the film's message that you're only as old as you feel - Buddha's elderly but irrepressible mother hounds him to work out and watches muscle-man competitions and "Sex and the City" on television, while little Sexy, who is knocking at death's door, longs to watch grown-ups' movies and spouts philosophical musings that convey wisdom far beyond her years.

In a lesser movie the cute-little-kid and cute-little-old-lady tropes would be tedious and cloying, but in the "less sweet" environment of Cheeni kum they somehow work perfectly; the charm and humor is warm and light enough that even these characters hit just the right balance, offering us glimpses of Buddha's tender side even before his salty courtship of Nina is fully off the ground.  The film waxes melodramatic in the second half, veering closer to traditional Bollywood style with a preachy speech or two and some distraught grieving.  But these are minor quibbles in a thoroughly delightful film, and are far overshadowed by the rich humor afforded by both the characterizations (such as the inconsistencies of Nina's father's semi-sincere Gandhism) and the situations (such as Buddha's mounting frustration as he waits for the right opening to break the news of the engagement to Nina's father).  Small imperfections are readily overlooked in as tasty a confection as Cheeni kum.

A word on the music:  The songs of Cheeni kum are largely abbreviated in the film, and are presented without traditional Bollywood picturizations - i.e., the characters do not sing them.  Still, it is one of the finest and most melodic new soundtracks I've heard in a long time, and I've raved about it in other fora.  It is one of the few Hindi film soundtracks by the prolific and revered South Indian movie composer Ilaiyaraja.  Some have complained that Ilaiyaraja recycled melodies from earlier compositions for Cheeni kum, but as I wasn't familiar with his work before this didn't bother me in the slightest.  I think it's a fresh and wonderful soundtrack, highly worth a listen.   

Filmi Geek metapost

Namaste filmi dosto.

It's been eight weeks or so since my last metapost.  That time has seen the addition of more than a dozen reviews to the site, bringing the total number of films reviewed here to a staggering 105 (plus one play).

That represents pretty much every Indian (or Indian-themed) film I have seen in the past two years, and means I've watched, on average, one a week for two years.  Obsession is a great thing.  I am watching more now than I was in the beginning.  In the first 20 weeks of 2007, I watched and reviewed 36 films, for a pace of just under two a week.  I have to have something new to keep you all coming back!  This past weekend, a three-day weekend here in the US, I saw three more Hindi films, including the brand-new Cheeni kum currently showing in theaters, so you can expect a review of that and other new posts this week.

In the meantime you can visit the discussion boards at BollyWHAT? or at Jaman to talk about what's new and old in Hindi films.  Jaman, where I'm a reviewer and moderator, has a good collection of Hindi films available for free download. 

The Great Gambler (1979)

With its exotic locales, scheming baddies, long-lost brothers, nonsensical plot, and smitten heroines, there is little to set this film apart from dozens of other masala movies of its era.  Yet the charisma of its stars - Amitabh Bachchan in a dashing double role, and Zeenat Aman as smoking hot as ever - is enough to seat The Great Gambler solidly in the category of light, fun timepass.   

Jai (Amitabh) is a gambler, a man with the power to make the cards dance for him, hired by casino owner Ratan Das (Madan Puri) to separate rich businessmen from their money.  Ratan Das hatches a scheme to marry Jai to Mala (Neetu Singh), the daughter of another wealthy businessman (Iftekhar), and sends Jai to Lisbon to meet her.  Jai doesn't know that Ratan Das is engineering a scheme to steal the plans for the government's powerful new defense technology and sell it to the highest bidder.  His contacts in this scheme include a gang boss named Saxena (Utpal Dutt), whose henchmen Ramesh (Prem Chopra) and Marconi (Sujit Kumar) carry out his dirty work. 

Meanwhile, a police officer named Vijay (also Amitabh) is hot on the trail of Saxena's gang and eager to recover the stolen secrets.  Vijay is a dead ringer for Jai, of course, and when Saxena's gang realizes this they - with the help of their moll, Shabnam (Zeenat Aman) strongarm Jai into taking over Vijay's identity and helping them complete their transaction.  While Jai is diverted from his journey to meet his betrothed Mala, she finds Vijay instead and - once she's mistaken him for Jai - sparks fly. 

The story is much less coherent than that description, with numerous details, twists, and complexities that don't fit together and make little sense.  But the plot is not where The Great Gambler's entertainment lies.  It lies rather in odd scenes and fun moments, driven by Amitabh and Zeenat looking their best.  The henchman Marconi, who lives in Rome, speaks Hindi with a lilting Italian accent.  Jai and Vijay, once united, pull of a hysterical bamboozle in the guise of an impulsive emir and his bumbling secretary.  There is a stomach-churning fight scene that takes place in a meat locker.  Zeenat melts the screen with a hotter than hot belly dance in "O Rukasa mera naam".  Asha Bhosle sings the plaintive "Do lafzon ki hai," gorgeously picturized on a Venetian gondola.  Moments like these are the glue that holds The Great Gambler together when the plot gets too nonsensical or the chase scenes and fight scenes too repetitive. 

Amitabh did not do enough with his double role - it was too difficult to tell his characters apart, unless there were some linguistic cues that escaped my rudimentary Hindi comprehension.  But that didn't detract too much from the fun of watching Amitabh just do his thing.  If you're a fan of his, or of Zeenat's, there are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon than watching The Great Gambler.   

Sarfarosh (1999)

सरफ़रोश

In 1947, in the process of yielding the governance of Hindustan, Britain divided the subcontinent into primarily Hindu India and primarily Muslim Pakistan, formalizing a religious and nationalist divide that has caused millions of deaths and that today still dominates politics within the two nations.  Part of the legacy of Partition is a host of entangled relationships among numerous Hindu majority communities in India, the Muslim minority that stayed in India after Partition, and various communities in Pakistan.  The complexities of these interactions are both fascinating and of vital importance to the region.  And so it is no surprise that they are a fertile source of material for good movies, like Sarfarosh, that explore them. 

When Ajay Singh Rathod (Aamir Khan) is a young college student, his brother is killed and his father gravely and permanently injured by terrorists.  Ajay is inspired to enter law enforcement - every criminal, he says, reminds him of the men who tore apart his family - and quickly rises to the rank of assistant commissioner.  He is assigned to crack a weapons-smuggling operation that is arming bands of village militiamen, backed ultimately by Pakistani intelligence service, with the assistance of a network of local elements within India.  On Ajay's investigative team is a brooding Muslim police inspector named Salim (Mukesh Rishi).  Ajay also meets a contemplative, philosophical ghazal singer whom he has admired since boyhood, Gulfam Hassan (Naseeruddin Shah), and enjoys a sweet romance with Seema (Sonali Bendre), a girl he had a crush on in college.  As Ajay's investigation gets closer to the truth, he comes into greater and greater peril, and learns that some of his friends are not as trustworthy as he thinks. 

Sarfarosh means "one who is prepared to die for a cause," and indeed, Sarfarosh is most compelling not for the story itself (which, though it provides an interesting glimpse into the infrastructure of terrorism, is not particularly suspenseful), nor for the fight scenes (which are violent and plentiful), but rather for its variations on the themes of religious and national identity.  Inspector Salim is passionately patriotic, but as a Muslim he suffers from the prejudice and unwarranted suspicion of his fellow officers.  When one of the smugglers escapes after a shootout with Salim, the inspector is accused of allowing the culprit - a fellow Muslim - to escape, and temporarily removed from the investigation.  Salim is deeply wounded, and lashes out with a moving speech in which he admonishes Ajay to "never tell a Salim that this is not his country."   

Gulfam sahib's story also raises the identity question.  He is a Muslim whose family was driven from its ancestral palace during Partition; he fled across the border to Pakistan.  He is revered as one of Pakistan's national treasures, yet, he tells Ajay, even fifty years later he is still held apart as a muhajir, a refugee.  He is no longer Indian and yet not fully Pakistani as well.  He is an engaging character, and the sad eyes and smile of the perfectly cast Naseeruddin Shah add depth to the sense that Gulfam sahib is something of a lost soul.

The gun-running story provides the canvas on which Gulfam sahib's and Inspector Salim's inner conflicts are painted.  Indeed, the film could have been even better had it been more about them, and less about Ajay, who is too fresh-faced to be believable at his elevated rank in the force, and too flawless to be a compelling character.  Ajay's romance with Seema, while very charming, is a distraction that is completely unnecessary except perhaps to provide a few moments of peace - for both Ajay and the audience - between rounds of gunfighting.  (In one delicious scene, Seema teases Ajay for being old-fashioned when he comments on her short short skirt; moments later, she blushingly insists that she can't meet Ajay's mother that day because "my skirt is too short!")  Also enhancing the mood is some beautiful desert cinematography and a hit-and-miss assortment of songs by Jatin-Lalit.  The standout here is the song that plays over the opening credits,  "Zindagi maut na ban jaye" ("may life not become death"), an upbeat and patriotic call to arms that plays over the films opening scenes, which are a menacing overview of the smuggling operation's clandestine transport of automatic weapons.   The film has some weaknesses, but on balance it is a solid and substantial piece. 

My thanks to Amit for comments that helped refine my initial impressions of the film.

Sarfarosh is available for free download at Jaman.com. 

Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959)

Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy films are considered by many to be the crowning achievement not just of Satyajit Ray himself, but of all of Indian film.  Apur Sansar (The world of Apu) is the final installment of the story, and I saw it without having seen the first two chapters, which recount events in Apu's childhood and adolescence.   

Apur Sansar picks up at Apu's graduation from school.  Living in a grungy Calcutta tenement beside the railroad tracks and barely scraping his rent together, Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) aspires to be a great novelist, and we learn early on that he has had some success at it, selling a short story to a local periodical.  On a vacation with his practical and grounded friend Kulu - ostensibly for Kulu's cousin's wedding - Apu makes a rash and heroic decision that changes his life forever.  The bridegroom succumbs to mental illness, and Kulu prevails on Apu to take his place and marry Kulu's cousin Aparna (Sharmila Tagore, here only about fourteen years old).  Apu and Aparna settle into a spare life in Apu's dingy flat, and for a while they enjoy a delicious period of newlywed bliss.  Then tragedy strikes, though, and Apu, unmoored and confused, struggles to recover his bearings. 

Apur Sansar's story covers a period of six or seven years in Apu's life, and is therefore necessarily episodic in nature.  Indeed, the film may fairly be characterized as a series of beautifully shot, poignant moments.  The dialogue is sparse and one is left to fill in the blanks, to guess at what the characters are thinking and feeling.  But the direction and performances are both subtle and expressive, so the emotional content is very real, even if the viewer must supply it.   In one early scene, Apu visits a pharmaceutical factory looking for work.  His face droops in self-doubt as he realizes that he lacks the constitution for monotonous physical labor.  Later, a series of warm, tender scenes conveys the quiet happiness of Apu and Aparna's married life.  In every scene, emotions play subtly across the actors' faces and evocative symbols - a wounded animal, a torn curtain, an inkblot - do much of the film's heavy lifting. 

I feel somewhat out of my league reviewing Apur Sansar, which, despite the many ways in which it is fundamentally an Indian story, reads more like a European art film than an Indian film.  I don't know a thing about European art films, and while I enjoyed Apur Sansar and was moved by it, I don't know that I fully understood or appreciated it.  Each shot is loaded with complex symbolism that is rich and even apparently contradictory at times.  At the movie's conclusion I immediately wished I could watch it again to give more thought to those symbols.  Instead, here I am with my rather impressionistic and incoherent commentary.  For something more, please visit my friend Amit and read his thoughts.

Khamoshi: The Musical (1996)

ख़ामोशी

This movie is so lovely I hardly know where to begin.  Driven by the truly outstanding work of its actors, Khamoshi: The Musical tells a story that in its particulars is specific to the concerns of its deaf-mute characters, but that nevertheless resonates universally for anyone who has parents or a child.

Joseph (Nana Patekar) and his wife Flavy (Seema Biswas) are the deaf-mute parents of a hearing daughter, Annie (Manisha Koirala).  In the film's opening scenes Annie is gravely wounded in a car accident.  As she lies in a hospital bed clinging to life, the narrative shifts into flashback, and Annie recounts her life story.  When Annie was a young girl, her love of music was fostered by her singing, dancing grandmother Maria (rendered adorably by the legendary Helen).  As she grows up, and her family weathers hardship and tragedy, Annie becomes distanced from her music.  Her parents - especially Flavy - grow to resent the music because they cannot hear it; they fear that it will pulls her away from their world and from them.  As an adult, Annie meets Raj (Salman Khan), a musician and music producer.  Raj falls in love with Annie's voice, and with Annie, redoubling the tension between Annie and her parents.  Raj wants both to record Annie and to marry her; Flavy hates music, Joseph hates Raj, and Annie is agonizingly torn between her love for and responsibility to her parents on the one hand, and her need for autonomy and for music on the other. 

The film's story is poignant and well-executed; like other films by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, it is melodramatic and a little bombastic, but unlike some of his others, the melodrama and bombast are deflty executed in just the right measure to magnify and project emotions rather than parodizing them.  (Contrast Bhansali's terrible Devdas, which I can hardly believe was made by the same person.)  But more than anything, it is the stellar work of the actors that makes this film so powerful.  Nana Patekar and Seema Biswas, as the deaf-mute couple, had a difficult job to do - conveying their emotional states with their faces and hands instead of with words - and they were simply mesmerizing.  The tenderness between them was beautiful, and their interactions with their daughter - whether sharing joy or locking horns - were just gripping.  I can't tell you how many times the work of the actors stopped my breath while I while watching this film. 

Manisha Koirala was outstanding as well.  Anyone who has seen Dil se knows what Manisha can do.  She was excellent throughout Khamoshi but one scene stands out and haunts me particularly; after a dispute with her father Annie stands outside their house screaming out her frustration through the door and signing frantically, even though Joseph can neither hear nor see her.  It's a moving speech bringing to the fore the undercurrents of Annie and Joseph's relationship; Annie suppressed a lifetime of resentment at Joseph for using her as a mouthpiece, for wanting to keep her a child, for stifling her music, and it came bursting magnificently forth in this one intense scene. 

Khamoshi: The Musical is ironically and evocatively titled; "khamoshi" means "silence," and so the tension between the silent world of Joseph and Flavy, and Raj's music-filled world is compressed into the film's title.  But while the details of the story turn on Joseph and Flavy's deafness - their fear of interacting with the hearing world and their fear of losing their daughter to it - the film's themes translate to generational conflict more universally.  Parents sometimes fear losing their children to pursuits they don't understand; children sometimes experience guilt at seemingly abandoning their parents to pursue their own lives, marriages, careers.  Khamoshi addresses these universal conflicts touchingly, through its story of a family that has faced more than its share of difficulty and yet still bonds together with tremendous love. 

If there is a weakness in the film it is the music, which is largely unmemorable and ordinary, and at times worse than that.  This is frustrating to me, because I have often found that movies about music - where you might expect particular attention to be given to this aspect - nevertheless have poor music.  This was an irritation in Morning Raga and Tehzeeb and it is an irritation here as well. Still, this is a minor quibble - the movie is so fantastic otherwise that a couple of middling songs are easily overlooked.

(Khamoshi: The Musical is available for free download at Jaman.com)

Kuch kuch hota hai (1998)

कुछ कुछ होता है

When I sat down to watch Kuch kuch hota hai ("something happens"), although I had seen nearly 100 Indian films, I was a Karan Johar virgin.  "K-Jo," as the filmmaker Johar is sometimes called - both affectionately and contemptuously - is a polarizing figure  among Bollywood fans.  He has created a number of massive hits, but some dismiss his work as "candyfloss" - emotionally manipulative, saccharine fluff.  Others adore it in spite of - or perhaps because of - the very characteristics that engender those criticisms. 

There was no particular reason that I'd missed the K-Jo boat; I hadn't deliberately avoided his films.  For a while I was under a self-imposed moratorium on Shah Rukh Khan (who stars in every one of Johar's films), but if a friend had invited to me to watch a K-Jo movie I would not have refused.  I just never got around to it.   When I decided it was time to take the plunge, I chose Kuch kuch hota hai, because it is the beloved favorite of several people who I think are really, really smart.  What I found in Kuch kuch hota hai is a film that is cheesy, sentimental, and manipulative - in all the right ways. 

Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) and Anjali (Kajol) are college students, best friends, and friendly rivals.  The tomboyish Kajol is forever challenging Rahul to games of pick-up basketball - and winning - while Rahul, for his part, teases her mercilessly.  Enter Tina (Rani Mukherjee), the glamorous foreign-educated daughter of the school's principal (Anupam Kher).  She brings out the gentleman buried beneath Rahul's rough-and-tumble, boys-will-be-boys exterior.  Inevitably, they fall in love, leaving poor Anjali out in the cold, as she realizes that she is in love with Rahul as well. 

We know from the film's opening sequence - the college story is told in flashback - that Tina died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, whom she instructed Rahul to name "Anjali" after their college friend.  On her deathbed Tina wrote eight letters to be given to little Anjali on each of her first eight birthdays.  Now eight years old, little Anjali receives the final letter, setting forth her mother's dying wish: that Rahul be reunited with the elder Anjali.  Little Anjali hatches a scheme to fulfill Tina's request, with her spunky grandmother (Farida Jalal) as her partner-in-crime.  The conspirators have their work cut out for them; while it doesn't take much for Rahul to realize what he could have had in grown-up Anjali, in the meantime she has become engaged to a gentle sweet fellow named Aman (Salman Khan). 

The story may not sound like much, and its resolution holds no surprises, but the film's message is a bit refreshing.  Rather than supporting the romantic but depressing notion that there is just one perfect match, one true love, for everyone, Kuch kuch hota hai acknowledges that even romantic love can come in different forms, and losing one's true love doesn't necessarily mean never having true love again.  Rahul recites the old saw a couple of times, insisting that love is a once-in-a-lifetime venture - but he's proven gloriously wrong.  (The bloom comes off this rose somewhat when it is considered that the mature Anjali has shed her track suits and tomboyish ways for a sari and a job as an instructor of Indian classical dance; Rahul never noticed her until she transformed into a girl who couldn't beat him at basketball.) 

For me - as neither Shah Rukh Khan nor straight-up romance is really my cup of tea - Kuch kuch hota hai is not more than a solid timepass.  Still, I appreciate some of what sets it apart from other films of its ilk.  It has the standard college film conceits - the college is a place for basketball, track meets, cheerleaders, and dance competitions, but not much in the way of classes or studying.  There's also a comically bumbling principal and an overly flirtatious sexy teacher (who even gets her own leering sound-effect every time she takes the screen).   And it seems that every stop is pulled out in achieving the apex of Bollywood bombast - ominous thunderclaps to signal significant moments, swelling music playing out the characters emotions, glorious and lush wedding preparations, even divine intervention when needed.  Somehow, though, the film maintains a sense of humor, a tone of self-awareness.  It's over-the-top, but it's over-the-top with a wink at the audience.  Combine that with the sweetness of the story, and the result is that it's very easy to play along. 

(For a terrific analysis of Kuch kuch hota hai through the lens of postmodern theory, have a look at Meredith's post on the board she runs, the BollyWHAT? forum.) 

Khamosh (1985)

ख़ामोश

Khamosh ("silent"), a 1985 mystery thriller by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, is clever, self-referential, satirical, and thoroughly entertaining. 

Shabana Azmi and Amol Palekar - playing themselves - are at an idyllic mountain resort with a film crew, shooting a thriller.  When their co-star Soni Razdan (also playing herself) turns up dead, the crew and the local police assume it is a suicide.  Then a taciturn CID inspector (Naseeruddin Shah) turns up and begins his own investigation.  He is convinced that Soni's death was no suicide, and as he learns of the secrets and feuds that seethe among the cast and crew, his eye shifts from suspect to suspect - the producer Dayal (Ajit Vachhani), publicly humiliated by Soni; the mother of a young starlet competing with Soni for a part in Dayal's next film; Dayal's drug-addled brother Kuku (Pankaj Kapur), desperately in love with Soni, and others.  As the body count grows and the red herrings proliferate, it quickly becomes apparent that few of this rag-tag bunch are who they appear to be.

The plot is a straight-up murder mystery, quite Agatha Christie in feel, since it features a tense group, confined to close quarters, criss-crossed by passions and rivalries.  What makes Khamosh different from other exemplars of the whodunit genre is that it is stuffed with in-jokes, references, and homages.  It pokes fun at slapdashery in Bollywood filmmaking, when the director spontaneously decides to rewrite the script and orders the dialogue-writer to produce new scenes for the actors to shoot the next day.  Vidhu Vinod Chopra pokes fun at himself with a running joke of the director repeatedly saying, "This is just a thriller!  Wait until my next film!"  And the actors poke fun at themselves as well - the Shabana Azmi of Khamosh, for example, sleepwalks, reads stories about herself in the gossip rags, and declares that she "can't understand politics."  Khamosh also acknowledges its debt to the films that went before it; one standout scene pays explicit homage to the shower scene in Psycho with a reference to The Godfather for good measure.

Having the actors Shabana, Amol Palekar, and Soni Razdan play themselves - rather than playing fictitious movie stars with made-up names - was a stroke of absolute genius that added a self-referential layer to the film, lifting beyond the realm of cute, entertaining murder mystery.  The film operates on several layers at once, playing with the viewer's sense of movie-reality and suspension of disbelief.  I am accustomed to seeing Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi together on screen, but here there is a strange and pleasant disconnect; he is in character, and addresses her as "Shabana ji."  The loopiness also alters the viewer's expectations about what can happen to the characters and what they can do.  It's difficult to explain the full scope of this effect on my experience of the film without giving away too many of the plot details!  But it was very enjoyable.

The sleuth at the center of the story, Naseeruddin Shah's Bakhshi, was entertainingly fallible - far from the flawless master of deduction, he jumped to conclusions and acted rashly as frequently as he showed investigative insight.  And the story itself was sufficiently twisty and surprising to sustain the suspense.  My friend Amit points out that Khamosh suffers from a few plot holes.  To a certain extent, I think he's right - it rare that a script with complex twists can stand up to detailed scrutiny.  But I barely noticed these small weaknesses on first viewing, because I  was just having too much fun enjoying the ride.  It may be "just a thriller," but it's a solid, suspenseful, and thoroughly entertaining film. 

Bluffmaster (2005)

Abhishek Bachchan, scion of Bollywood royalty, is a tall, handsome fellow with some hints of his father's screen-filling presence.  While he has the looks for dark, brooding characters, he is at his ease and at his best in brash, goofy roles, embodying a certain kind of nerd cool.   Indeed, so appealing is Abhishek in roles like Bluffmaster that one wonders why anyone bothers casting him in films like Umrao Jaan.

Roy (Abhishek) is young, handsome, rich, and engaged to the girl he loves, Simi (Priyanka Chopra); he's on top of the world.  He's also a world-class con man, though, and when one of his unfortunate marks turns up at the engagement party and cries foul, Simi tosses him out of her life.  Devastated, Roy half-heartedly resolves to go straight, and full-heartedly to win Simi back.  Before long, though, Roy runs into Dittu (Riteish Deshmukh), an aspiring con man himself, who convinces Roy to teach him the art.  Dittu seeks revenge upon a shady hotelier named Chandru (Nana Patekar), who, Dittu explains, conned Dittu's father out of his life savings.  Roy takes on the challenge.  Then Roy's avuncular friend, Dr. Bhalerao (Boman Irani) - whom Roy had previously rescued from one of Dittu's schemes - delivers some life-changing news, and Roy is forced to look at the con game with a new perspective.

Bluffmaster is charming and fun, thanks in equal parts to its star power and to tight, clever scripting.  The most entertaining parts of a good con movie are the cons themselves, and here (as in Abhishek's comparable vehicle Bunty aur Babli) Roy and Dittu's gutsy schemes drive much of the fun.  It makes no difference that the hustles would have little chance of success in real life - the frisson comes from being in on the game as the characters work their mojo on unsuspecting marks.  And Abhishek and Riteish Deshmukh have ample appeal to pull it off, though in contrasting milieus; Abhishek is slick, handsome, and well-dressed, while Riteish brings a more everyman sensibility.  Both are crisp and engaging. 

The supporting characters, too, are colorfully rendered.  Boman Irani, as always, throroughly inhabits his character with quirkiness and humor.  Nana Patekar is both menacing and comical as Chandru, the "big fish" whom Roy and Dittu set out to take down - he performs worship rituals before his own reflection.  And the city of Bombay is itself a significant player in the film as well, portrayed with both grit and extraordinary beauty.  The film is full of rooftop and balcony shots set before sweeping cityscapes that are truly lovely. 

There are self-referential and expository themes in Bluffmaster that perhaps set out to comment broadly upon deception in real life, and particularly in films.  (I have been told that in these aspects Bluffmaster borrows heavily from Hollywood's Matchstick Men and Argentina's Nueve Reinas, neither of which I have seen.)  Bluffmaster never lets the viewer forget that it is a movie - from the title sequence in which a pimped-out Abhishek dances broadly on a stage set backdropped by a flashing marquee bearing the film's title, to the occasional framed still shots that introduced each of the movie's principal characters.  There is undoubtedly metaphor lurking in all that self-conscious theatricality.  But the truth is that Bluffmaster invited me to watch it with my brain off, and I did - I just enjoyed the ride, with all its abrupt swerves, and didn't look too hard for meaning or message.  Bluffmaster, whatever else it may be doing, just spins a rippingly good yarn.