Genre : Drama
Year : 2006
Running time : 2 hrs 15 minutes
Director : Madhur Bhandarkar
Cast : Bipasha Basu, Kaykay Menon, Rajat Kapoor, Raj Babbar, Harch Chaya, Minishha Lamba, Achint Kaur, Vinay Apte
CORPORATE : Watch it if you must !
Corporate is a classic case of one character breaking the entire film. I’d looked forward to this Madhur Bhandarkar film. After the most excellent “Page Three” who wouldn’t ? But it’s almost as if some other director has directed this film – it’s so different and comparitively shoddy from Page 3. Frankly, in the humdrum first half, I was ready to lie back in my comfortable stadium theatre seating and take a nap.
There are lot’s of characters in the film, and the director takes his own sweet time introducing all of them. To his credit, he’s picked and chosen very good TV artistes for most of the roles. The only place he falters big-time is in picking the leading lady ; he’s chosen Bipasha Basu for the pivotal role of Nishigandha Dasgupta, and the lady makes a complete hash of it. Basu can diplay a limited number of emotions, actually only 2 : happy or sad. If the film requires some greys or in-between emotions you’re out of luck.
The story’s not really flaky, but is delivered with such little impact, that it tests your patience. The film only starts to get remotely interesting towards the second half, and I’m being kind. So, there are two major business families, both competing against each other and the fiercest of rivals. On one hand there is the Marwah group headed by Dharmesh Marwah (Raj Babbar), and on the other there is the Sehgal group headed by Vinay Sehgal (Rajat Kapoor). While in Marwah’s group we have Pervez (Sandeep Mehta) and other unknown faces, in Sehgal’s team is Navin (Harch Chhaya), Nishi (Basu), and Sehgal’s brother-in-law Ritesh (Menon). Pervez is forever hitting upon Nishi at social functions, and while she is in love with Ritesh ( and he with her) she uses Pervez (unwittingly) to do some corporate espionage. Pervez loses his job when this is found out, and Nishi gets her just deserts when she is made the fall-guy for Sehgal’s business debacle . . .
That’s pretty much the sum of the story. Of course it takes 2 hours (seemed longer) because the movie-track meanders up and down various corporate machinations, the bribing of corrupt politicians, and lots of little side stories which do nothing for the film. Everyone except Basu does an OK job at depicting their charcaters – Menon, Babbar, Chaya and Kapoor are good. Achint Kaur as Vinay Sehgal’s wife is effective in her small role. Vinay Apte as the corrupt minister Gulab Rao really plays the part to the hilt “Jai Maharashtra” and all. Minisha Lamba has a small role as Nishi’s underling Megha, although why this character was created in the first place I have no clue – it has no impact on the film. Lillette Dubey has a tiny role as a journalist/pimp and she does as well as expected.
The music is bad and the sountrack pathetic. The background music which could have served to heighten the sorely needed impact is missing or in the wrong places. If there were good/bad guys here – they aren’t easy to point out – that’s the kind of mess this film is. I didn’t root for any “hero/heroine” nor did I feel bad when Nishi was beset with troubles, thanks to Basu’s ridiculous attempts at acting. At one point, I used to think the both John Abraham and Basu were at par as far as their acting (in)abilities were concerned. With this film I can say that Abraham has forged miles ahead of her.
And what’s with the “Allen Solly” ad in the film ? Bipasha as the hard-headed (but with a conscience) businesswoman has her pulled back, way back, into a snappy, silky ponytail (I’d get a migraine just from all that hair-pulling), but the business suits don’t do her justice. For someone with that great a figure surely they could have found something smarter !
Although I can’t put a finger to the faults of the film, I’ll say that the characters were not well-defined and kind of wavered. Yeah, they were cut-throat and all, but we didn’t see their “good” sides – no attempt at creating the sympathy factor with the audience. The film’s story was someone’s attempt to be cerebral and fail. Honestly it looked like they’d taken the regular old hindi film story where there are 2 warring families, imbued them with businesses, and dropped the romantic lead. I’d call the film listless. Watch it if you must.
