Quite a self-explanatory title, I guess. Watched ‘Company’ over the weekend. I’d watched the film the time it was released in B’bay. Back then, I thought it immensely stylish and wonderfully shot. RGV is an intelligent director/producer. From ‘Rangeela’ to ‘Ek Haseena Thi’, he has come a good long way. Well-researched films with cohesive plots and good performances…
This time around, as I watched the film, I liked it all the more. Wonderful performances by each actor… My favourite guy, Mohanlal… As cute as a teddy bear!!! That almost-impish smile breaking across his face as he says,”Kis ne tujhe bataaya ke police waale kanooni daur se kaam karte hain?”
Another helluva great performance from my fav actor… Of course not to mention the excellent performances turned in by Vivek Oberoi, Ajay Devgun, Seema Biswas and Antara Mali… Nearly every actor, actually.
hemya says:
i’d rank company (very very classy gangster film) a cut above satya too…
hemya
May 10, 2004 — 8:22 am
Lakshmi says:
I think both the films are excellent. A bit difficult to compare the two even though they talk about the same idea, essentially.
May 10, 2004 — 10:22 am
hemya says:
to me….company seems a bit more realistic….
May 10, 2004 — 12:44 pm
Lakshmi says:
Didn’t you think so about Satya? It was realistic, all right.. Just shorn of all the glamour in ‘Company’. After all, the hero was a guy who wasn’t a gangster, originally… Unlike the chaps in ‘Company’ who didn’t appear to have any other credo in life.
‘Satya’ could have been the story of any of the sidekicks in ‘Company’, don’t you feel?
May 11, 2004 — 5:38 am
radhika74 says:
i missed company..i think because it was released a month or two after niharika was born…missed lagaan too..finally watched it on tv a few months ago..:)
May 10, 2004 — 10:13 am
madhav says:
I found it a bore, really. Was painful to watch Mohan Lal speak Hindi, too.
Btw, Ek Hasina Thi wasn’t directed by RGV, though his company produced it. It was directed by Sriram Raghavan.
May 10, 2004 — 9:13 pm
Lakshmi says:
I liked the fact that they didn’t use dubbing. The important point, I felt, was the brevity in all his dialogues and the implied meaning. He was a class act…
I was aware of RGV not directing ‘Ek Haseena Thi’, which is why I mentioned ‘director/producer’.
May 11, 2004 — 5:29 am
Lakshmi says:
DD, what I did like was… that he was obviously NOT a native Hindi speaker and they didn’t bother to hide that. That, I felt, was the realism in the film. I’ve read somewhere that his character was based on DCP of B’bay, Sivanandan who is also a Keralite, I think.
Like in ‘Satya’ where the hero sounded obviously like a Southie.. but THAT was what I liked.
The film was downright realistic… no lousy dubbing, all mistakes, accents, ethnicities.. revealed.
May 11, 2004 — 5:35 am
Lakshmi says:
DD, I am not so … touchy??? Is that a right word?
Or clannish, maybe??!!
May 11, 2004 — 5:45 am
Lakshmi says:
DD, my father has been in B’bay since 1960s and he still retains traces of an accent. In fact, I’ve heard stronger accents in younger Mallu people too. I mean to say, the fact that he spoke Hindi with an accent was preferable to a Hindi dubbing/non-accent. His original voice, the original accent… everything added up to make him and his speech easily identifiable as a characterstic. And it didn’t strike me as overt or caricatured like so many other South Indian characters in Hindi cinema have come across… Hopeless!
Also, his speech didn’t deter from the impact of his dialogues which were deadly. Brief, succinct with a load of implication…
May 11, 2004 — 10:12 am
Lakshmi says:
On the other hand, DCP Sreenivasan might have spoken better Hindi had we seen him 6 months later…:-)))
May 11, 2004 — 10:16 am
Lakshmi says:
Yes… For a first timer, Vivek O turned in a great performance. Amazing Asha Bhosle with ‘Khallas’, not even sexy Isha Koppikar could do justice to that voice… She’s one musical powerhouse! Piece de resistance was Ajay Devgun; he seems to have materialised into a real stylish actor.
May 11, 2004 — 11:32 am