Review: Badmaash Company has zing, style and entertainment

Film: Badmaash Company
Cast: Shahid Kapur, Anushka Sharma, Meiyang Chang, Vir Das
Director: Parmeet Sethi
Certificate: U/A
Rating: * * *

It’s got a background score that sounds suspiciously like Ocean’s 11, a storyline with shades of 21, and clichés that you associate with a ‘Bollywood’ film. In spite of all that, Badmaash Company is immensely watchable. Without some inconsistencies and a little more imagination, it could have been a lot better.

The film starts in the year 1994, with Karan (Kapur), Zing (Meiyang), and Chandu (Das) wanting to make a quick buck after graduation. Along with Bulbul Singh (Sharma), they take on the job of carriers — a 1990s term for people who smuggled imported goods into the country — and soon their aspirations soar.

They form Friends & Co (are they inspired by the sitcom that was a rage at the time?) and start importing goods from abroad. But the business isn’t as simple as it seems. Karan, the most astute of the lot, devices a plan to hoodwink customs and save on the duty levied on branded goods: an astronomical 120% in those days. The goods, thus available to the four at a cheaper rate, bring in huge profits for them.

However, then finance minister Manmohan Singh’s liberalisation policy, which brought down the duty levied on imported goods, puts a spanner in their works. Karan then comes up with another plan. This time he has his sights set on foreign shores.

Once there, their cons get more ambitious, and the benefits, greater. But the payback is big too, as the four eventually find out.

Each of the three men develops a vice — Zing becomes an alcoholic, Chandu a womaniser, while Karan’s weakness is money — and it leads to interpersonal differences and the group breaking up.

After a period of falling out and ‘retribution’, the four get back together for one more con. This time, though, it’s to bail out Karan’s uncle from a business debacle and not for monetary gains.

Parmeet Sethi, still remembered as the Punjab da puttar that Simran was to get married to in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, gets to kickstart his directorial career with the same banner that launched him as an actor. And, frankly, he does a good job, too. When you read his name under Story, Screenplay, Dialogues, and Direction, you are a wee bit sceptical, but your doubts are laid to rest soon.

The story, of course, isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Ambitious youngsters resorting to con jobs to make quick money only to realise their ‘follies’ eventually is something we saw even recently in the very forgettable Teen Patti, which itself was a rip-off of the Hollywood hit 21. In fact, Yash Raj’s Bunty Aur Babli had a similar storyline, too.

Where Sethi makes his mark, though, is in the screenplay, which moves fast and keeps you hooked, and in the dialogues, which make the proceedings fun. His characters are interesting, the casting is apt, and he has managed to extract good performances out of the fairly new bunch of actors.

Setting the film in the 1990s is not only apt, given the plot, but also brings a certain charm to the proceedings. A catchy score by Pritam helps, with Ayashi, Chaska and the title song bringing the film alive. Fakeera, sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, is a great track, too.

You wish, though, that some corners weren’t cut. Although the cons have been well thought out and executed, sometimes you get the feeling that the four get what they want a trifle too easily. Whether it is persuading an American company to do business with them though they are newcomers, or securing a bank loan in a foreign country, it all seems a cakewalk.

Karan's marriage with an American for a green card disappears from the plot as suddenly as it appears. Whatever happened to that track? Also, though the more conventional audience may be impressed by the fact that the characters ‘realise their mistakes’ and Karan has to ‘pay for his crimes’, it takes away from the inherent zing the film possesses till that point.

Frankly, if Sethi had kept out some unnecessary ‘weepy’ moments, like the one where Karan’s father (Anupam Kher) receives an award, or the one where Karan finds out he’s a father, the film could have been shorter, crisper, and more enjoyable. And we would have got to see a Hindi film in which the protagonists aren’t apologetic about wanting to do something they don’t consider ‘wrong’, even if it may be so morally.

That little conventionality and some convenient writing apart, Badmaash Company is fairly entertaining. Shahid Kapur rediscovers the good form he struck in Kaminey and seemed to have lost in Chance Pe Dance. The actor has the persona and the skills to carry off the shrewd con man he plays with style.

Sharma looks like a million bucks and puts in a bindaas act. She and Kapur share a great chemistry and are responsible for making the film immensely watchable.

Both Vir Das and Meiyang Chang put in good debut performances and have the potential to be seen in supporting roles on a regular basis.

Badmaash Company is the film entertainment-starved audiences have been waiting for. And this one might actually go beyond ‘opening weekend numbers’ and prove to be a genuine hit. It has what it takes to do so, for sure.