Kaminey

Twin brothers in Mumbai: Charlie stammers and works angles at the racetrack, Guddu is honest to the point of choking on his words and works for an NGO. They cannot stand each other. One day a bag full of narcotics falls into Charlie's hands, Guddu's girlfriend becomes pregnant, and her brother turns out to be the political thug who runs the district. Within a single day every side converges on the same place. The film is not interested in crime. It is interested in speech impediment building character: one stammers, the other swallows his letters, and because neither can quite say what he means they are permanently misunderstood. Both its comedy and its tragedy come out of that detail. The form is fast and dirty: handheld camera, narrow streets, rain, jump cuts. Vishal Bhardwaj's own score works inside the narrative. Bhardwaj directed and composed. He was known for his Shakespeare adaptations; this counts as his tightest film from an original screenplay and is said to have changed the language of crime cinema in India. Shahid Kapoor plays both brothers and Priyanka Chopra the girlfriend. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian crime cinema and fast-cut narrative. Who it is not for: anyone wanting an easy story to follow. The plot is very crowded, the accents and slang are thick, and in the first half it is hard to keep track of who is who.