Once in while, sometimes, almost out of some unexpected roll of dice or a divine sleight of hand that dictates the fate of all 'creative' endeavours in Bollywood; comes a small, precocious film that gets everything right and like its protagonist wins everyone over, despite its modest star cast, lack of a memorable original soundtrack and a screeplay thats heavily peppered with a nasal panju-jat accent.
Like S Raghavan's Johnny Gaddar, you know Oye Lucky Lucky Oye is special from the moment its Truck-Body-Kitsch-Art casting starts rolling to the tune of Kishore Kumar's~'Chahiye-thora pyaar-thora pyar chahiye.' The film is a studied overstatement (!) of the aspirations of a typical Dilli lower-middle-class chor like no film before it. And its done with humour, panache and amazing attention to details from start to end~ right from the title which exemplifies the Punjabi way of addressal to its intelligent use of rank newcomers to make the protagonist's audaciously long run from the clutches of the law believable. And no, there are no derisive, stereotypical references to-' Barah baj gaye' type Sardar jokes or Karan Johar types glycerine/ glitterati shaadi tamashas where everyone on screen is gauche personified. Here; the sets look real, the characters flesh and blood and the general energy level and garish colours adopted by the director are as different from KHOSLA KA GHOSLA as the awkward Parvin Dabas was from smooth operator Abhay Deol.
Abhay Deol as the rather sweet, suave but remorseless cut-surd turned compulsive chor with nerves of steel is a joy to watch. He's making mental inventories of 'lift-able' commodities into any house that he walks into. Jewellery, clothes, music systems, TVs, anything will do. Even pet Pomeranians. He's forever looking for a quick gasp at everything that's rich, luxurious and just out of reach~ though he doesn't have a house to keep his stolen booty in. He lives in a car and is perpetually on the run. And he will go as far as his stars take him before his he runs out of luck. Total entertainment to the tune of 30 lakhs worth of good stolen, as per the state Police records.
The film begins with fifteen minutes from the life of a teenaged (& turbaned) Lucky as a precursor to his adult life of 'hi-fi ambition.' From there, there's no slowing down as Lucky steals cars, hearts, almost entire shop-marts. Where OLLO triumphs over regular chor-police romps is also in capturing the strain/changes that come into Lucky's relationship with his lady love (Neetu Chandra), brilliant side-kick (Manu Rishi), father( Paresh Rawal), chief mentor (Paresh Rawal) and a Vet (Paresh Rawal again!).
The overall plot is admittedly nothing to write home about but the hilarious screenplay, dialogues and character sketches score highly without falling into the trappings of ho-hum mainstream-masala movies. In this reality-bite of Dilli ka alu-paratha, entire families live their lives in small, stuffy and unplastered houses, scooters are still the only family vehicle, irate parents still throw pilate-glass at bigade-hue bacchas and the girl next door still looks like the coy girl next door, sans attitude, make-up and parlour hair-do.
Dibakar Banerjee's sophomore venture is one of best entertainers of the year. No question about it, oye!
Like S Raghavan's Johnny Gaddar, you know Oye Lucky Lucky Oye is special from the moment its Truck-Body-Kitsch-Art casting starts rolling to the tune of Kishore Kumar's~'Chahiye-thora pyaar-thora pyar chahiye.' The film is a studied overstatement (!) of the aspirations of a typical Dilli lower-middle-class chor like no film before it. And its done with humour, panache and amazing attention to details from start to end~ right from the title which exemplifies the Punjabi way of addressal to its intelligent use of rank newcomers to make the protagonist's audaciously long run from the clutches of the law believable. And no, there are no derisive, stereotypical references to-' Barah baj gaye' type Sardar jokes or Karan Johar types glycerine/ glitterati shaadi tamashas where everyone on screen is gauche personified. Here; the sets look real, the characters flesh and blood and the general energy level and garish colours adopted by the director are as different from KHOSLA KA GHOSLA as the awkward Parvin Dabas was from smooth operator Abhay Deol.
Abhay Deol as the rather sweet, suave but remorseless cut-surd turned compulsive chor with nerves of steel is a joy to watch. He's making mental inventories of 'lift-able' commodities into any house that he walks into. Jewellery, clothes, music systems, TVs, anything will do. Even pet Pomeranians. He's forever looking for a quick gasp at everything that's rich, luxurious and just out of reach~ though he doesn't have a house to keep his stolen booty in. He lives in a car and is perpetually on the run. And he will go as far as his stars take him before his he runs out of luck. Total entertainment to the tune of 30 lakhs worth of good stolen, as per the state Police records.
The film begins with fifteen minutes from the life of a teenaged (& turbaned) Lucky as a precursor to his adult life of 'hi-fi ambition.' From there, there's no slowing down as Lucky steals cars, hearts, almost entire shop-marts. Where OLLO triumphs over regular chor-police romps is also in capturing the strain/changes that come into Lucky's relationship with his lady love (Neetu Chandra), brilliant side-kick (Manu Rishi), father( Paresh Rawal), chief mentor (Paresh Rawal) and a Vet (Paresh Rawal again!).
The overall plot is admittedly nothing to write home about but the hilarious screenplay, dialogues and character sketches score highly without falling into the trappings of ho-hum mainstream-masala movies. In this reality-bite of Dilli ka alu-paratha, entire families live their lives in small, stuffy and unplastered houses, scooters are still the only family vehicle, irate parents still throw pilate-glass at bigade-hue bacchas and the girl next door still looks like the coy girl next door, sans attitude, make-up and parlour hair-do.
Dibakar Banerjee's sophomore venture is one of best entertainers of the year. No question about it, oye!
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