Film review – Delly Belly

Film Name: Delly Belly

Starring: Imran Khan, Poorna Jagannathan, Shenaz Treasuryvala, Vir Das, Kunal Roy Kapoor, Vijay Raaz, Paresh Ganatra, Raju Kher, Rahul Singh, Rahul Pendkalkar

Music: Ram Sampat

Director: Abhinay Deo

It's fast paced new era cinema. It's different. In a word, the newest release from Aamir Khan Productions, Delhi Belly is brilliant.

The beauty of Abhinav Deo's film is not its smooth story, slackly inspired by the type of movies made famous by Guy Ritchie, 'Lock Stock..' and 'Snatch' among others, neither is it Ram Sampath's catchy music that beats to the rhythm of the movie, or the slick, seamless direction, or its immaculate casting and performance or even its wickedly witty dialogues. The true beauty of the movie is in all these elements together creating a madcap image of a new, unabashed, even shameless section of India.

Abhinay Deo's second directorial outing after Game, Delhi Belly is a youth centric movie set in the old city of the national capital. Producer Aamir Khan famously stated before the film's release that Delhi Belly has the potential to take away all the goodwill he has earned over the years in the industry. With expletives to the max (the DK Bose song is the least of it) and shady situations for every taste, the movie breaks the Bollywood mould and turns in Hindi cinema's first real comic crime film.

The movie rides high on a energetically paced screenplay and some fantastic editing from Huzefa Lokhandwala, all built around LA based screenwriter Akshat Verma's insane (in a good way) original story. With a whole lot of smart dialogues and crazy funny set pieces that'll have your stomach aching with laughter, the action here moves so fast that it quite literally is a case of 'you blink and you miss it'.

The film casts Imran Khan, Vir Das and Kunaal Roy Kapur as the protagonists, Tashi, Arup and Nitin respectively, three friends who share a dirty, neglected flat in battered Delhi. Tashi is a journalist who's getting set to marry his jet set sweetheart, an airhostess played by Shenaz Treasury, in a month, even as he seems to be developing feelings for Meneka, a colleague played by Poorna Jagannathan, a divorcee with a maniacal ex. Arup, on the other hand, is a loser graphic artist in an ad agency, bullied by his boss and deserted by his girlfriend, while Nitin is a semi slimy photographer, with no doubts about blackmailing and stealing from people, who is about to have the worst case of Delhi Belly he's ever had. When Tashi's girlfriend gives him a strange package to deliver, he and his mates are involved in a hilariously dangerous chain of events that sees them get involved with some of the deadliest gangsters in the city, headed by a rib tickling serious Vijay Raaz.

Though Delhi Belly isn't exactly visually exciting, the kick comes from the smartness of its urban humor, which will find a lot of fans, particularly amongst the upwardly mobile twenty to thirty something audiences, with comic settings like Nitin's 'affinity' for orange juice almost seeming like stand up staple. While it may have made for controversy fodder before the film's release, but after a watch, it is obvious that the expletives and dirty comedy come very naturally to a story like this, and honestly, it would be odd if the film didn't have the actors mouthing cuss words in every second dialogue. Though this critic watched the film in its Hinglish format, with the lead characters speaking maybe one dialogue or two of Hindi in the entire movie, one is sure that the humour here will translate into Hindi just as easily.

It helps the movie hugely, that the film's three leads, Imran, Vir and Kunaal, truly get into the skin of their characters. It is interesting to note that though he may be the most known of the lot, Khan sees himself nearly upstaged by his two colleagues, with Kunaal's Nitin the film's breakout character. Vijay Raaz has a fairly short track, but is simply amazing in his role as the menacing gangster leading a bunch of nitwit goons. Shenaz Treasury is quite okay, but the film's true female lead is the smouldering Poorna Jagannathan, who scorches the screen in every one of her scenes. One can only hope we get to see more of this fine actress in the future. Others like Paresh Ganatra as the lead trio's landlord, and Rajendra Sethi, as the archetypal Delhi businessman, is quite funny as well.

The film's musical quotient, with one of the best soundtracks of the year from Ram Sampath, is also quite high, though the director makes a smart decision not to interrupt the narrative via song and dance. The way tracks like 'bedardi raja' and 'bhaag DK Bose, aandhi aayi' are used is quite excellent and leaves a strong impression without breaking the flow of the action. Aamir's 'item number', 'I hate you (like I love you)', is also enormously pleasant, though its placement could have been better.

Abhinay Deo may have earned criticism for his first movie, Game, but Delhi Belly shows what he might have been busy with, at that point, and Delhi Belly is whole rescue for the Bollywood newbie. With the movie, Aamir Khan is obviously cementing his position as one of B'town's smartest film maker, picking some of the best scripts and subjects in the industry for his production house. In the end, the star of Delhi Belly', though, is Akshat Verma, the unknown screenwriter, who has come from nowhere to deliver one of the smartest, tightest comic capers Hindi cinema has seen in current times.

On the whole, Delhi Belly is, obviously, a must watch film!