Flies, but not too high

The man who makes movies with swings and saris, ghaats and boats, Rabindrasangeet and thumris, is helming a film about bikes, boxing and bawaali. That too backed by the formulaic play-it-safe movie machinery called Yash Raj Films. And it features two actors in the lead whose histrionic skills have been somewhat questionable. In short, everything about Pradeep Sarkar’s Lafangey Parindey has been slightly suspect since inception.

But then you can take the man out of his world but not pluck out his passion. Sarkar puts so much heart into his films that even when the subject fails him (like it did in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag), he never fails the subject. And at times, he transcends the subject to create cinematic moments which can find pride of place in any world.

Just like a Ram Gopal Varma or a Mahesh Manjrekar would have struggled to set up the world of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sarkar’s tapori terrain in Lafangey Parindey is anything but smooth. Every line mouthed by every character maybe flooded with shaana, waat, katli, chamaat and rapchik but they do not rest easy on the lips. The detailing maybe fine but you can easily make out that the Tilak Waadi chowk is very much Yash Raj Studio.

In that plastic quasi-lower-middle class Mumbaiyya setting live One-Shot Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) and Pinky Palkar (Deepika Padukone). Yes, he needs "one shot" to knock out his opponent in the local boxing matches where Usmaan Bhai (Piyush Mishra) makes lakhs every Friday night through betting. Like Sonam’s Bittu in Delhi 6, Pinky plans to fly away from her shabby surroundings through a nationwide talent show. Her talent? Dancing on roller skates.

There’s just a chhota sa problem. On a rainy night, driving a car with a broken windshield and a wounded senior bhai (a Kay Kay Menon cameo) by his side, Nandu slams into Pinky on the road. She loses her eyesight and is reduced to ek hi jhatke mein Hema Malini se thenga Malini! First out of guilt and then out of love, Nandu decides to make Pinky see, first through her other senses and then through her heart.

A promising premise, made even more intriguing by a multiple-perspective narrative (script by Gopi Puthran), flies high till the interval before India’s Got Talent raises its ugly in-film-advertising head. The TV channel must have paid a lot, but when will YRF realise that these singing and dancing talent hunts only go on to dilute the scope of a movie? We have seen it before in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, to some extent in Aaja Nachle, and here we have it again. No matter how you pitch it, winning a talent hunt never comes across as a big deal on 35mm.

Thankfully by the time the dancing duo of Pinky and Nandu (he’s traded his knuckle gloves for the roller skates to partner her; what were you thinking?) lift the trophy (of course, they win; come on, that’s not a spoiler), winning the show doesn’t matter that much. Because the truth has already surfaced and even the police have matched Nandu’s fingerprints on the steering wheel.

The soft-spoken very-Bangali Sarkar is not someone who goes down and dirty, something Lafangey Parindey needed oodles of. Like Pinky incredibly doesn’t have a single scar anywhere even though she loses her vision after the accident and Nandu never has a bruise to tend to, even though buckets of blood are spilt in every fight.

It is the set-pieces where Sarkar sparkles. Like the scene where Nandu teaches Pinky to "hear". In a magical moment, a whole assembly of hanging ghantis are swung in the air as Pinky tries to hit them with round flour dumplings. Or a couple of the roller dance sessions which look absolutely breathtaking.

And why not? After all it is Deepika Padukone wearing the skates. But it is not just her beauty which bowls us over. Deepika the actress has been getting better with every outing and here in a role which challenges her to the hilt, she doesn’t disappoint. The eyes are rendered dead but there’s so much life running through that smile.

Neil Nitin Mukesh is comparatively bland. He’s fine as long as his muscles are rippling and he is sending people flying through the air, Guy Ritchie-style, but he is not able to internalise the guilt trip and his emotional scenes remain as flat as his abs. The actors playing the friends are good, especially Wake Up Sid’s Namit Das. Piyush Mishra (Maqbool, Gulaal) is expectedly top notch.

Sarkar’s constant collaborator, cinematographer Natarajan Subramanian, shoots today’s Mumbai with the same zest as he had shot yesterday’s Kolkata in Parineeta.

The music by R. Anandh (the memorable lines are by Swanand Kirkire) works for the film. Mohit Chauhan’s "Man lafanga" and Shilpa Rao’s "Nain parindey" are the picks. And although "Dhatad tatad" sounds a lot like Padosan’s "Mere pyare bindu", the energy in the beats is infectious.

Yeh picture decent nahin hai is what Nandu tells Pinky when she takes him to what seems like a lovey-dovey movie and has him narrate the images that play out on screen. For such moments and that bewitching Padukone girl, Lafangey Parindey, at just under two hours, is definitely a "decent" watch.


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