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For the team of Kaminey, it was a homework that was one of its kinds. Vishal Bhardwaj, director of the film, instructed
his entire cast and crew of the film to watch caper classics like Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Pulp
Fiction and True Romance to catch the finer nuances of a caper thriller.
Even though Kaminey is touted to be an out and out original thriller coming out of Bollywood, it is quite new and unique
when it comes to the genre. There have hardly been many caper thrillers generated out of Bollywood and though recent
Kunal Khemu and Boman Irani release 99 did come close, such attempts have been far and few.
In fact Fool N
Final (which incidentally starred Shahid Kapoor) had it's bearings with Snatch but it could hardly make an impact
amongst the audiences.
"This is why Vishal wanted to be sure that everyone from cast as well as crew members gets familiar with the entire
idea of story telling when it comes to a caper thriller", informs a prominent crew member who was assigned this
'homework' just like the rest, "There is a certain 'sur' in movies belonging to this genre and one miss here or there and
the film risks falling flat on it's face."
Movies like Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998) & Snatch (2000), Quentin Tarantino's Pulp
Fiction (1994) and Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) have traditionally acted as text book material not just for India but
even West when it comes to caper thrillers..
There have been quite a few movies belonging to this genre that
have been inspired from the above mentioned flicks but not many have even managed to touch the surface.
Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj too agrees that it was quite a tedious task to make Kaminey. "I was under the impression
that it would be easy and fun to write Kaminey.
After all it was meant to be a caper so I could let my
imagination go wild. However, as it turned out, it was not just difficult to write but further even more difficult to translate
the written material on screen", says Vishal.
Since the narrative includes quite a few characters, the screenplay writing came with its own challenges. "There are as
many as eight to ten characters in Kaminey and since each of them have equal intensity and space requirement, there
was no time to establish them all", remembers Vishal, "I had to make them all memorable while catching them into the
act."
This is not all as Bollywood sensibilities had to be taken into account as well, what with Kaminey being pitched as a full
on commercial flick with eyes on popular audience.
"Yes, we needed to add all the Bollywood 'masala' elements with romance, songs, dances etc. being the much
necessary ingredients. It was very tough and now when I look back, I am glad our team was able to crack it all well",
signs off Vishal.
Aiming for a 14th August release, Kaminey stars Shahid Kapoor in the double role of Charlie and Guddu.
While Priyanka Chopra plays the character of Sweety, Amol Gupte features as Bhope Bhau. With lyrics by Gulzar,
music by Vishal Bhardwaj himself and cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain (of Omkara fame), Kaminey is a UTV
Motion Pictures production.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:12 IST