Company (2002)

Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Writer:    Jaideep Sahni
Cast:       Ajay Devgan, Vivek Oberoir, Mohanlal, Manish Koirala
Language: Hindi

A slumdog named Chandu (Vivek Oberoi) teams up with Malik (Ajay Devgan), a middle-level enforcer for a criminal syndicate. Together they eliminate all their enemies, becoming the most feared gangsters in Mumbai, known as Company, before insecurity, anger and misunderstandings turn them against each other. Amidst all this, the South Indian  police commissioner Sreenivasan (Mohanlal) looms in the background scheming their downfall.

It is certainly the definitive gangster picture of Indian film industry aided no less by the fact that it is more or less inspired from what happened in Mumbai underworld. The director Ram Gopal Varma was at his peak and was able to fully utilize the stellar cast at his disposal. Acting is tremendously restrained and it is shot in what can be called stylistic minimalism. The soundtrack is also kick-ass and the narration when it comes gives us a sense of foreboding. Unlike Satya, RGV is not apologetic about making us root for two characters who are law-breakers and on top of that he gives us a very likable Police Commissioner who is out to get them. Another great thing about it is that it is not through the efforts of the Police that things go tits up for Company, but through very understandable sequence of events that can afflict any organization when undergoing change. Things begin to unravel when Malik starts concentrating more on his international businesses leaving Chandu to take care of Mumbai underworld. Insecurity about giving too much power to Chandu causes problems at ground level leading to misunderstandings. To compound all this Chandu doesn't become as ruthless as he should be to reflect the position that he occupies in the crime syndicate leading to conflicts with Malik. Sreenivasan makes use of the situation to bring Chandu to the other side of the law.

Vivek Oberoi makes a very assured debut with this film and Ajay Devgan, whom I consider to be a very limited actor, is also in surprisingly good form delivering some dry philosophical lines. It could have really went wrong but both of them are able to pull it off. Mohanlal made his Hindi film debut with Company and the fact that his character is a Malayalee in it helps him to use his own voice for the role. I don't know whether they shot the film sequentially but his fluency in Hindi also seemed to improve as it went on. Rest of the cast are also very good and the sparingly used songs help in ,moving the story. 

The relation of Malik and Chandu is supposed to be loosely based on the Mumbai underworld kingpins Dawood Ibrahim and Chotta Rajan respectively. The Pandit character in the film is also based on Dawood's confidant Sharad Shetty. Ironically Shetty was killed on Rajan's orders shortly after the release of the film in a case of life imitating art. Don't know whether any misunderstanding was involved mind. RGV later produced D, which is a prequel to events in Company, thus completing his Mumbai gangster trilogy which also includes Satya. 

To sum it up it is a near perfect film which could have had its running time cut down by a slight bit. To be fair the two and half hours running time is quite conservative for Indian films. I had seen it for the first time some ten years back and didn't expect it to be remain this good on a rewatch. RGV probably won't do a better film than this and the same can be said of Vivek Oberoi I guess. Got to say it is also miles better than Anurag Kashyap's bloated magnum opus 'Gangs of Wasseypur' which got good reception at Cannes where it was screened as part of Director's fortnight. 

Rating: 4.5/5

                                                                

Satya (1998)

Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Writers:  Anurag Kashyap, Saurabh Shukla, Ram Gopal Varma
Cast:       J.D. Chakravarthi, Manoj Bajpayee, Paresh Rawal, Urmila Mantodkar, Saurabh Shukla
Language: Hindi

Film follows the activities of Satya (Chakravarti), a man whose background is not entirely given, who comes to Bombay in search of a job and circumstances lead him on to become the right-hand man of a middle level gangster called Bhiku (Manoj Bajpayee). Bhiku is the hot-tempered one and following Satya's advises he moves up the food-chain that is Mumbai underworld. This brings them under the scanner of Police as well as their new rivals in the mafia world. In between all this he falls in love with his neighbor (Urmila) whilst keeping the nature of his profession a secret from her.

I am a big fan of RGV's 'Company' and many have told me that his previous underworld film 'Satya' is a superior and grittier film. With Anurag Kashyap involved with its screenplay, making his film debut, it promised much. Got to say that overall it is a good film but 'Company' is far better, at least based on my memory of watching it some ten years back. Satya portrays a far more lower level of underworld in Bombay and in that sense it is grittier. The cinematography was done by a foreigner called Gerard Hooper who seems to have not done much work besides this. The way Bombay is captured is in a magnificently bleak and realistic manner and Danny Boyle had cited RGV's 'Satya' and 'Company' along with Anurag Kashyap's 'Black Friday' as influences for how he filmed his Oscar winning shite bag 'Slumdog Millionaire'. What is great about Satya is its supporting cast and where it is let down by a huge deal is the acting of its main protagonist, played by J.D. Chakravarthi. That and RGV's propensity to adhere to Bollywood conventions in the form of some unnecessary songs and overbearing & manipulative soundtrack. It is certainly very different compared to the normal Bollywood fare but the fact that it kind of stands in the middle doesn't do it any favors when not put in a historical context. It has been bettered by the likes of Anurag Kashyap himslef leaving Satya looking a bit aged in terms of its storytelling. The last one hour of the film is quite good after the arrival of Paresh Rawal in the role of a tough Police Commissioner. 

My main problem with Chakravarti in this film is with his dilaog delivery. It might be a case of his character being someone from South India, the polished sounding delivery (at least to me) didn't sit well with me. It didn't really reflect the nature of the character and this can be contrasted with how Mohanlal handled the situation in 'Company'. Since he portrayed a South Indian character he used his own voice giving legitimacy to his  very average Hindi fluency and vocabulary in that film. Company's average and cliched story-line is masked a great deal by its overall production quality as well the main cast who were all good, even Ajay Devgan. The moralising tone of Satya's ending was much more jarring when compared to its slow buildup in Company. It was not as if RGV was a small fry in Bollywood since he had already got his big breakthrough with 'Rangeela' and so he could have been a bit bolder.

Overall it is a good watch without being anything more than that. I feel like watching Company again. Got to say that the much maligned figure of Priyadarshan, who is notorious in the Hindi speaking world for his shitty Hindi remakes of Malayalam films, had made superior Bombay underworld films involving Mohanlal much before the likes of RGV began to ply their trade in Hindi film industry. He might not have conveyed the same authenticity but he made up for it with superior storytelling. 

Rating: 3/5