Can we have more of such stuff please?. Review on Delhi Belly

Hoping to catch it on the coming weekend, plans got finalized a little sooner as I managed to watch it this afternoon. I don't exactly remember when was the last time I reviewed a film immediately after my cinema watching experience. I usually do it if I find a movie extremely torturous in which case I review craps to vent out my boiling frustrations. Or I do it if I find a movie too good to not writing something about.

Remember the insane yet awesome Lock, Stock, and two Smoking barrels plot, or the latter Guy Ritchie films - Snatch and Rock n Rolla? (I wouldn't delve deeper into Pulp Fiction's wild imagination anymore as my buddies are sick of my Tarantino hangover). But if we've finally found an India's answer to the Hollywood care-a-damn yet willing to take you on a roller-coaster ride for 100 minutes of your life kind of genre, this is it. YES, Delhi Belly is crazy unpretentious fun that makes you laugh out loud every five minutes of its running time with its situational humor in a plot driven by some excellent writing on display.

Frankly speaking, summarising the plot here is not going to make justice to your expectations and I would suggest you to let it unravel on its own, without letting any expectations of you about its storyline hamper a zany movie-watching experience. All I would say is, though its climax might appear somewhat predictable compared to the rest of it, its one helluva ride filled with lopsided twists and unforeseeable turns. The movie actually made me want to congratulate the writer for his remarkable script sense.

Abhinay Deo's direction is several notches above his previous Agatha Christie-on-celluloid wannabe Game but still pales in comparison to his writer's craft. The trouble is, although the filmmaker's work is far from bad and his control over the narrative is pretty good in places, perhaps a signature touch could have helped in a genre like this one. What I am referring to here isperhaps a Guy Ritchieish touch like of the playful background score in the crazy Snatch credits or an unnecessary yet powerful flashback sequence where a black don casually sets a trouble seeker on fire for umm...well.. changing his favorite Sports Channel. Or still, a Shosanna imagining the director and his French Translator making love while being introduced to them, in a gem called Inglourious Basterds. I know that those are pretty high expectations from a newbie director who had received flak all over for his first film but hopefully he would carve a niche for himself through his future projects and there's no looking back for him then.

If I hold a grudge against an otherwise perfect popcorn entertainer, it's the English dialogue delivery of some of actors (except a brilliant Vijay Raaz), which somehow doesn't appear natural despite their sincerity. This film could very well have been in Hindi. The only portions where the use of English words deemed essential, for me at least, were the ones involving the underworld don and the Russian smuggler. Hindi could have easily been used much more in a lot of scenes and although the English dialogues never seem out of place, they short fall of being entirely convincing.

I don't have much to say anything about the performances of the three lead actors and most of the cast members, except that they did whatever was expected from them. But if there was an actor who literally walked away with the film, it was Vijay Raaz with his portrayal of a cold-blooded don who enjoys torturing his victims as much as he loves his diamonds. It has been a while since I watched a film of his, but he is sheer awesomeness whenever he appears on screen, threatening to engulf all those who share screen space with him.

Its a must watch to sum it up. Finally, we have a black comedy that's probably one of the funniest ones in recent times, competing with the likes of outstanding satires like Khosla ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. And yes, give me Nitin's farts anyday over people getting slapped in Anees Bazmee and Priyadarshan's brain dead comedies