The clash between two underworld criminals comes to breathtaking life in Ram Gopal Varma's most accomplished film to date.

'Company'

The Plot

When differences of opinion occur between Malik (Ajay Devgan) and his underworld cohort, and right hand man, Chandu (Vivek Oberoi), the latter flees with wife Kanu (Antara Mali), vowing to bring down Malik and his criminal empire. Malik's girlfriend Saroja (Manisha Koirala) and cop Srinivasan (Mohanlal) get involved in this crossfire.

The Review

The great, audience-pleasing films based on crime -- 'The Godfather', 'Deewaar', 'Nayakan', 'Vaastav' -- usually detail the lives of their protagonists along an operatic arc. These people do terrible things but always due to Some Big Reason, like a bad childhood or a father having to be saved. Ah, we empathise, it's Fate that made them so.

The power and beauty of director Ram Gopal Varma's 'Company' is in how this romantic notion is so utterly turned on its head. Malik, Chandu and the people around them are criminals simply because they want to be.

So matter of fact is the way these folks are introduced that several key moments aren't even dramatised. Instead, an omniscient narrator tells us what's happening, giving the early reels a documentary-like feel. Characters are thrown at you so quickly that you don't have time to register who's who because the people do not matter as much as the lifestyle they represent.

Varma and cinematographer Hemant Chaturvedi go all out in these scenes with attention-grabbing camera angles and intensely stylised lighting. After an Urmila Matondkar number during the credits, bathed in blood red light and in which laser lights appear to the sounds of gunfire, we are shown shots of Mumbai in such bright sunlight that you almost squint at this transition. Then onwards you see frames shot in different kinds of film stock and jump cuts galore, set to Sandeep Chowta's effectively Wagnerian themes.

Just as I began to feel that there was way too much flash for the story, I understood that this early visual gloss is actually glamourising the crime life. As the Malik-Chandu story thread slowly becomes prominent, 'Company' eases its look-at-me stylistic swagger to take us to the emotional core of these characters. When was the last time you saw the technology behind a film so subservient to its themes?

Writer Jaideep Sahni's conception of each role is clear as crystal. Malik is so removed from conventional society that marriage to him is simply 'aag lagaakar chakkar kaatna'. He may tolerate Saroja's contributions while planning an assassination but his cold chauvinism will dismiss her when she contradicts him. In stark contrast is Chandu, the passionate, puppy-dog heart of the film, whose naivete is constantly at odds with his chosen profession.

This is Devgan's best effort since 'Zakhm' and newcomer Oberoi is incandescent, having to play many scenes in the tightest of close-ups. You get to the core of these men -- Malik the sophisticate, Chandu the savage -- by just looking at their women, as Manisha's stylish mannerisms perfectly complement the girl-next-door rawness of Antara Mali.

These performances get powerful backup from Mohanlal and Seema Biswas. The former is superb as a cop whose bad Hindi diction and baby-faced pleasantry conceal a hard-nosed determination to crack down on crime. (Just look at his barely suppressed glee upon nailing a stool pigeon.) And Biswas, as Chandu's 'maa', is a far cry from the Nirupa Roys railing against their sons' choice of work. This mother actually enjoys the perks.

These characters, even the wonderful minor players like Rajpal Yadav, Vijay Raaz and Akash Khurana, are further enhanced by their look. Malik's style dictates shirts unbuttoned enough to display his gold chains while Chandu's scruffiness is manifest in the bidi-maachis sticking out of his rolled-up shirtsleeve. Saroja's sophistication shows in her pantsuits and cigarettes while Kanu's move to the high life is evident by her beribboned plait making way for a trendier cut.

With so much going on in terms of technique and characterisation, you do not miss the lack of songs to add emotional heft (they just play in the background), though I wish that the captivating 'Pyar Pyar Mein' and 'Aankhon Mein Raho' had been fully realised. But the time saved here is given to more terrific sequences.

I could go on about some of these. Like how a double murder at point blank range is oh-so-casually filmed without gore. How a riveting chase in a foreign land is high on action without superhuman heroics. How the soundtrack for a shoot-out inside a hall starts with actual screams from around and segues to a newscast about the event. And how a tense montage of gang members getting killed is intercut with phone conversations that set off these killings.

There's just a small misstep at the very end when 'Company' gets a bit preachy, with Chandu being shown the error of his ways and all. This seems like a bit of a cop out given the unapologetic tone of what's happened so far. But the characters themselves have been emotionally exposed by now, like when a bedridden Chandu gets a teary call from his mother, and the film's growing a sudden moral heart does seem to go with this.

In any case, by the time you've seen that fantastic final shot of a character, lit so that the face is completely blacked out, as if this person will languish anonymously in prison like any other common criminal, you really don't feel like carping about a film that's this close to perfection.

The Rating

'Company' is as current as the headlines, yet as timeless as its themes. It's the work of a director who's set his sights really high and come up trumps every which way. Yes, that includes setting the action in Hong Kong, Kenya and Switzerland without a single dream sequence anywhere.

Baradwaj Rangan

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