thehallmark-1

Khosla Ka Ghosla! (2006)

A surefire benchmark

Indian film industry is the most prolific in the world and yet very few of our movies make their mark on the global scale and I am not talking about the financial aspect of this industry but the lack of imagination and finesse. Hence the Indian masses cannot be blamed for their taste in cinema simply because they have rarely been exposed to truly magnificent cinema.

This is partly because most of the commercial movies are profit-centric as they ought to be but these movies revolve around a nucleus of a few 'stars' and the producers bank on these 'brand-ambassadors' to make the movie click; plus the profit from the sales from the movie soundtrack is a very crucial part in the success of a movie and this incumbency on songs is unparalleled which leads to so many abrupt speed breakers in the narration of a story so that these songs can be accommodated. And it works sometimes but the calamity is that every movie is focused around the same philosophy.

This movie stands apart because it does not fall prey to any of the above. There is no 'brand ambassador' for this movie. The forte of this movie lies in its simplicity, sincerity and substance and much of that credit goes to the director Divakar Banerjee.

At the crust of the movie are two of the finest actors in the country today; Anupam Kher as the ordinary middle class fifty six year old man (Khosla)in Delhi whose only drive in life is to build a new house for his family that has his wife (Kiran Juneja), his elder son Balwant(Ranveer Shourie), his second son Chirounjilal aka Cherry (Parvin Dabas) and his daughter. Balwant is a jobless waster and Cherry works for an MNC but wants to leave the country for a better job in America.Navin Nishcol (Bapu) and Vinay Pathak (Asif Iqbal) are also assets to this movie.

Boman Irani(Khurana) is a very wealthy and sly business man who captures the plot of land that Khosla had bought for building his dream house. Now if Khosla wants the plot of land that belongs to him he must buy it from Khurana, the problem though is that he doesn't have the money as he spent his life's savings to buy that plot of land. This movie is about how an ordinary middle class old man tries to reclaim his stolen (robbed) dream back from the powerful clasps of this crooked property dealer.

The film looks real. Actors don't wear designer costumes, there are no exquisite locations but what it does have is ingenuity and a sense of realm. The movie does not focus on a couple of 'brand ambassadors' but does justice to characters and all the actors have done a commendable job in keeping it real. The characterization is superb. The dialogues are witty and have a subtle Indian flavour in them. It also has a hint of dark sense of humour. The opening scene is funny but is inconspicuously and heavily sarcastic which is excellent dark comedy material. You will see many of those in the movie. I would agree that Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron is an excellent reference point.

The movie does not exaggerate and neither does it take itself lightly. There are many scenes in the movie that manifest the problems of the common man who lives a mundane life and is helpless. Those who watch movies are these common men and they would love to see something that they can relate to.

The best Hindi movie that I've seen since Lagaan. Will remember it for is originality, sarcasm and its intrinsic common man appeal.