Omkara

I finally saw Omkara yesterday. I watched the movie with a lot of expectations because I had previously seen Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool, which is based on Macbeth. This movie unfortunately was a disappointment. Among the pluses is the fact that he has adapted Othello to the contemporary north Indian setting. I am not sure from the dialect and the accent, if the theme was set in Rajasthan, Haryana or Uttar Pradesh. There are some gaps in the script, the tempo wasn’t sufficiently maintained and in between the movie drags on. Also the language is very crude. There is only so much crudeness and double entendre one can tolerate. There are light moments in this film and thankfully the film is understated with no melodrama, characteristic of Shakespeare and Hindi films!

This movie belonged to Saif Ali Khan. He has totally stripped himself of his sophistication and has gone under the skin of this character. This actor is so versatile and I am glad he is finally being given his due now in the industry. His performance does not disappoint one bit. Konkana Sen Sharma has complemented him really well. The one actor who surprised me totally was Kareena Kapoor. She has understood this character and has rendered so much of freshness and innocence to it. Unlike her older sister, she does not have dilated pupils in every emotional scene. Vivek Oberoi is all right. I had loved him in Company but I feel he is a limited actor. Ajay Devgan as Omkar is unconvincing. I had liked him in Raincoat but that role did not require him to bring in plethora of emotions and complexity in character. His limitations as an actor are exposed in this film. In my opinion, Manoj Bajpai or even Vijay Raaz (Dubey in Monsoon Wedding) would have done justice to this role. Bipasha Basu is too sophisticated to play Billo Chamanbahar. Unlike Saif she has not managed to strip the patina of urban India and understand this character.

Overall it was entertaining and in a different league than other Hindi films. Would I watch this again? Probably not!