Review : Omkara

Rating : Excellent (4.35/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2006
Running time : 3 hrs
Director : Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast : Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kareena Kapoor, Deepak Dobriyal, Bipasha Basu, Vivek Oberoi

Omkara : An engrossing Othello !

The film show which I attended was sparsely sprinkled with desis, and everybody favored the seats at the rear of course. So here I am and there’s this gaggle of girls sitting in the row behind me, which is all fine and good, except that they talk loudly. Which is also fine (they didn’t talk during the movie), except that during their talk in the interval, they loudly reveal the ending !! And I’m well within earshot. God, dumb people ! I mean if you know what’s going to happencan you not tell the whole world ? Aaghh !

Knowing the end lessened the impact but I still enjoyed the movie – so you can imagine how good it is. Like “Maqbool” which was based on “Macbeth”, “Omkara” is based on another Shakespearan tragedy “Othello”. Vishal Bhardwaj provides the music, co-writes the dialogues and screenplay and directs, which leads me to believe that the man must be a genius, because he does each task beautifully. The story is well adapted to rustic Uttar Pradesh, the dialogues, the dialect and the accents sound authentic, as does the acting. Omkara is quality cinema.

Omkara or Omi Shukla (Devgan) leads a gang with his two right hand men Langda Tyagi (Saif) and Kesu Firangi (Vivek) , and aids and abets the local canny politician (known only as Bhaisaheb (Naseeruddin Shah)) in the criminal neccesities of his political career. Omkara falls in love with Bhaisaheb’s lawyer’s daughter Dolly (Kareena) and she with him, and abducts her from her marriage mandap. After much bad blood between the lawyer and Omkara, matters are resolved when Dolly admits to loving Omkara in front of her father, and he in humiliation and anger issues a warning on woman’s fickleness to Omkara. Nevertheless Omkara and Dolly plan to marry and Dolly is firmly ensconsed in his home. Meanwhile Bhaisaheb wins the elections and his parlimentary seat and elevates Omkara to a party post. So Omkara promotes Kesu as “Bahubali” to head the gang, which makes Langda jealous. Thus Langda, in cahoots with Dolly’s spurned to-be husband Rajju (Dobriyal), hatches a plot to gain his revenge . . .

Ajay Devgun has another “Company” like role, only this time it’s not a don in Dubai, but a small-time goonda in the rural towns of Uttar Pradesh. And he does just as well, giving an arrestiing performance. Saif crowns his acting career with a jewel of a role and shines as Langda Tyagi, which is quite a departure from his usual suave, urban-boy roles (Dil Chahta Hai, Hum Tum etc. ). Vivek has a comparitively small role as Kesu but is competent. And Kareena, who’m I considered an average actress, is superb as Dolly, essaying innocence and naivete perfectly. Konkona Sen Sharma plays the role of Indu, Langda’s wife, and is her usual competent self, doing a convincing job as a rural woman with cynical tendencies. Bipasha Basu has a pretty small role (billed as a guest appearance in the credits) as the local nautanki wali Billo Chamanbahar, and Kesu’s love interest, but manages to make it work (yeah, wonders never cease), although the first time she opens her mouth to speak Hindi in the rural drawl, it sounded like she was speaking some exotic foreign language ! The find of the film is Dobriyal, who plays Rajju, Dolly’s spurned would-be groom with panache. And ofcourse nothing need be said about Shah’s depiction of the politician; he is as good as ever.

The film has good songs and background music, and Bharadwaj squeezes in 2 catchy item numbers (something we didn’t see in Maqbool) filmed on Bipasha. Pretty fast-paced in the first half Omkara slows down post-intermission, with less of the action and more of the subtle mind machinations. The film has humor and poignant moments interlaced with the action, and the director takes pains with details and in building up the characters (little touches like showing Langda painting his finger nail). The story is believable and well adapted but there are some logical gaps (unlike Maqbool) – stuff like Omi not recognising Langda’s overt mind poisoning, or Dolly not recognising the importance of a family heirloom and treating it with the carelessness of an inexpensive toy (how naive can you get ?).

So although it’s not as fantastic as Maqbool, Omkara is a close second. A must watch.