Kaante involves six Indians living abroad with shady criminal pasts brought together by police investigators who are convinced that one of them has stolen a truck full of laptop computers. The six meet up in a jail cell and decide they will strike back at the cops by robbing the bank where the cops´ pay comes from.The characters have some desperate circumstances that require them to take up the job. Major (Amitabh Bachchan) needs to get money to fly his terminally sick wife (Rati Agnihotri) back to India. Marc (Suneil Shetty) needs to get enough money to support his dancer girlfriend Lisa (Malaika Arora) and get her away from the stripper-life. Andy (Kumar Gaurav) needs money to fight a court case against his estranged wife who won´t let him see his son. Ajju (Sanjay Dutt) is in the deal for the manic thrill, and Bali (Mahesh Manjrekar) and Mark (Lucky Ali) are in it to pay off thugs and strippers that they owe money.

So the men pull off the robbery after minute planning, but when they prepare to make their escape they are ambushed by the Los Angeles Police Department. The six make their escapes in separate ways and meet up again in an abandoned warehouse. There, they try to figure out which member of the crew tipped off the police. Unlike most Bollywood entertainers, there are no comedy sketches that stick out like sore thumbs or boy-and-girl dancing through trees routines. The comedy comes naturally from the dialogs (Mahesh Manjrekhar and Sanjay Dutt are hilarious at times), the glamour is built in and not tacked on (Isha Koppikar and Malaika Arora are quite relevant to the plot), and the action is not pedestrian and archaic in presentation.

It is this successful integration of Bollywood conventions into a completely unorthodox storyline and presentation that makes Kaante outstanding in the context of Indian commercial cinema. Kaante also deserves a special mention in the "look and feel" department. The camera work is innovative and consistent throughout. Sanjay Gupta is no brilliant filmmaker, but he certainly deserves applause for a job well done here. Performances are brilliant from all the lead players. Amitabh Bachchan is superb in his role, as expected. He overflows with style but manages to keep his character vulnerable and human. He is perfectly cast as the brilliant, desperate, forceful and towering leader of the pack. Sanjay Dutt is incredible as well. He plays his character with a disturbing undercurrent of insanity and the result is one of the best performances of the year.

Mahesh Manjrekar is excellent. In fact, he steals some of the best scenes in the film. As a reckless drug addict, he is both side-splittingly funny and touchingly emotional.Suneil Shetty is in his element once again, after a number of terrible performances, and reminds everyone that he is a performer to be reckoned with. His coolly reserved performance hits all the right notes, and he becomes one of the most sympathetic characters by the film´s end. Lucky Ali is powerful once again after Sur.  

Supporting artists are alright. Malaika Arora is stunningly gorgeous in her dance numbers and scenes, and manages to evoke emotion in the few scenes she shares with Suneil. Rati Agnihotri is proficient, but has very little screen time. If there is one bad performance in the film, it comes from Gulshan Grover. He overacts and hams in all his scenes, and his repetitive name-calling of Suneil Shetty´s character very quickly grates on audience nerves. Isha Koppikar is great in her dance number appearance. But Kaante has its share of flaws too. Sanjay Gupta falters as a director in parts. He clearly didn´t know where to draw the line when it came to action scenes and flashy sequences, and the movie sometimes spirals out of control as a result. Also the screenplay, an amalgamation of a number of Hollywood films, has a few glaring plot holes and illogical sequences.

If Kaante deserves to be panned for anything, it´s the derivative plot. The first half of the plot is copied from Brian Singer´s The Usual Suspects, where a crew of robbers decides to work together after being falsely accused of stealing a truck. The second half is copied almost scene for scene and dialog for dialog from Quentin Tarantino´s Reservoir Dogs. 

But even though Kaante is highly derivative cinema, it represents a step in the right direction for Bollywood. Overall, Kaante is well worth the wait and a must-watch for those who have kept their faith in Indian cinema despite a truly lackluster year. This is a bombastic, furious picture that has only one goal; that is, to thrill audiences and keep them glued till the last frame. And the film manages to accomplish this feat remarkably well. Kaante is everything a masala movie should be; it packs the whole smorgasbord of Bollywood conventions - romance, dances, glamour, comedy, drama - into one fun-filled, action-packed, polished joy-ride of a film.