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Anthony Kaun Hai Review
Anthony Kaun
Hai
Review :
Arshad-Sanjay combo crackles
in 'Anthony Kaun Hai?'
By Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service
Rating: **
Film: "Anthony Kaun Hai?"; Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi,
Minissha Lamba, Raghuvir Yadav, Gulshan Grover; Director: Raj
Kaushal;
First questions first - is this an original film? If it is, then
this is one of the finest, sassiest and most sparkling scripts
one has encountered in recent months.
A fine central performance by the ever-competent actor Arshad
Warsi playing a victim of destiny's high-handedness, gives that
extra edge and simmering sparkle to what
could have been a precariously stylish pretext to film Thailand
like never before.
Hemant Chaturvedi's cinematography is top-notch. Use of sepia
and brown shades in the first half and more flamboyant colours
in the second half gives director Raj
Kaushal's film that certain edge of delicious irony and
under-stated ecstasy, generally denied to Hindi commercial
cinema.
Indeed one of the films USPs is the subversion of cinematic
conventions. The device of the victim Champak Chaudhauri, aka
Champ (Arshad) narrating his story to a
child-like gangster (Sanjay Dutt, and how many times has he
played the gangster to perfection!) gives the narrative a chance
to repeatedly jump the grin and the gun to give
us a dollop of devilish delight that seems original and
intelligent.
A sort of Sanjay Gupta flick where a gentle quality replaces the
savagery that usually attends celluloid treatises on gangsterism.
Sanjay as Arshad's sounding board reminds us how much Hindi
cinema can benefit from its traditions, if it only stops being
slavish to convention.
Sanjay often "corrects" Arshad's narrative about his life. Watch
that wickedly funny moment where Sanjay slaps his story-telling
hostage and tells him to woo his girl in the
way they do in Yash Chopra's films.
Yup, the hit-man is a movie buff. Predictably, he falls for his
intended victim's love story. Why not? The romantic scenes
between Arshad and Minissha Lamba, who has
vastly improved from her earlier outings, are done up in a
believable warm and endearing style.
Watch Arshad in the airport-located climax (gosh, how many filmy
lovers have been united at this location in the last ten years!)
where Minissha asks him to prove his love by breaking into song
in full public view.
Arshad is priceless. Whether trying to dig diamonds out of a
prison backyard or wooing Minissha with song and poetry - this
guy has got just what ticks. Arshad has shaped into one of our
more watchable performers, almost a new-age Kamal Haasan.
But it is the movie references that sustain our interest. From
the film's title (a homage to Amitabh Bachchan's Anthony
Gonzalves in Manmohan Desai's "Amar Akbar
Anthony"), Kaushal never fails to remind you that the more
things change the more they remain the same - the trick is to do
a shimmy with that sameness.
"Anthony Kaun Hai" does just that. And comes up with an
endearing and engaging yarn which works when it's not being too
clever for its own good.
More than the chemistry between Warsi and Lamba and earlier in
the narrative, Warsi and Anusha Dandekar, who exposes so much
skin you wonder if under-dressing is
mandatory in parts of 'Thigh-land', it's the Arshad-Sanjay combo
that crackles and hisses with a livewire intensity.
If Arshad is obedient and reverent, Sanjay is cool and casual.
Together they embody this watchable film's spirit. It is both
respectful and tongue-in-cheek about what makes Hindi cinema
tick.
But the question persists - is it an original? .
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