Badmaash Company - Notepad

This page has additional observations, other than the ones noted in the main review.

Plot Summary

For all its depth, the movie only depicts one character really well - Shahid Kapoor's Karan. Meiyang Chang's Tenzing provides adequate material for ethnic humour but doesn't really go beyond that. Vir Das is also wasted in the role of a sidekick, mouthing one half of the jokes (the other half being the taglines supplied by Chang). Anushka Sharma just feels like Rab Ne Bana Di's Taani in western wear.

What Worked

For a story depicting an earlier time (and even era), the film doesn’t look dated at all. If you look really hard, you notice that the cars are the boxy varieties which were our only options back in the early 90s. Key phone conversations are all held on landline and STD/ISD services are big, keeping of course, with the pre-mobile phone era. But each of these motifs is incorporated smoothly into the movie and one might not even notice them unless one is specifically looking for them.

What did not

The characters costumes and styling look more contemporary than the pre-liberalisation times (men’s kurtis, spiky hairdos, rebonded hair). Since the camera focuses on the characters and close-up most of the times, the look is more modern than expected.

Nitty-Gritty

In one scene, one of the friends is standing outside a movie-rental library. Viewed from inside the shop, he is framed in the doorway and the poster stuck on it is of Baazigar. This is very near the end and seems to be a tongue-in-cheek comment on the character, a sort of ‘make the comparison if you notice it’ touch. Nicely done. An actor of Anupam Kher’s caliber has very little footage in the movie. But he sparkles in the one scene that is his uniquely – while receiving a lifetime achievement award where he says that the award is usually received with modesty but that he will take it with pride. It is not very clear just how Jazz mama made his millions in U.S.A. Particularly in a story about dubious schemes, the question seems to hang in the air. The mystery grates a bit since one is not sure whether to empathize with him later for being a man of honest means who gets sucked into criminal abetting or to think that he’s just getting what he deserves. Either way, his luxurious surroundings and flamboyance are highly convenient to the plot.