Omkara

Dark, intense & with a sense of foreboding .... the movie had everything that the hype had said it would. The effort that Vishal Bhardwaj puts into his movies was evident in Maqbool itself, but that film had somehow not made much of an impact. But Omkara does everything that Maqbool couldn't & then some.

First off, the star cast .... it helps a lot in increasing a film's profile if it features established stars in unconventional roles. And when you've got a star cast that goes like this .... Kareena, Konkona, Bipasha, Devgun, Saif & Vivek .... you know this film's gonna be worth the 150 bucks in terms of the glam quotient, at least.

The performances .... well,
Ajay Devgun & Bipasha - 3 stock expressions & great looking abs.
Vivek - Umm, OK sort of.
Kareena & Konkona - Kareena's getting there & Konkona's well on her way .... these two were impressive.
And THE role of the film, Saif essaying Langda Tyagi .... what do you say about a guy, who when he came on the Hindi movie scene, was such a rank bad performer. And look at where he's got to now.

Okay, conceded that his role has the highest potential in the film, even then one can't imagine anybody else delivering the kind of performance he has .... it's that good. The getup, the limp, the look in his eyes, everything holds your attention like nothing else in the film. Jealousy, deceit, treachery .... they all are a part of our lives .... often playing more of a part than we would like to portray & that's where you can identify with Langda's character. Seriously, if one has had a hard time & is looking for inspiration to get to where you really wanna be, look no further than Saif .... he's got to a point where he can carry off a film like Omkara on his own shoulders. And that's saying something.

Other things praiseworthy include the sets, the characterizations & especially the dialogue (Bhardwaj himself), which adds to the hard hitting impact in a big way (besides bringing back memories of the lingo we used back in college). All in all, a good film which shows the way for the future of Hindi moviedom .... the script should be the star & not the stars themselves. And one more thing, .... all halls should stock Masala Popcorn like they have at Innovative. It went really well with the 2 shots of Smirnoff I had before the movie.