Afterthoughts – Ek Chaalis ki Last Local
A Collage of References
Ek Chaalis ki Last Local is a treat for you if you watch it in an empty theater with no people or expectations. It is Abhay Deol’s innocence that catches you first, then the empty railway station reminiscent of Dil Se. then as the razor sharp screenplay takes over, you can stay assured this is good cinema.
For a screenplay that reads like a Film Rental’s Catalog (ample references to Pulp Fiction, Lock Stock, Big Lebowski flying scene, Fight Club), Last Local entertains you and entertains you.
They are all there to call it Noire-the cheesy indulgent filmic devices(the proverbial one liners, the staged drama, the relating-to-audience Voice Overs, the matter-of-fact cinematography, badly done make-up and the intriguing nuances of a linear narrative. You name it.
The lines are too crisp to ignore-
“fakkad bunty babli”
“ye Mumbai dogs bhi”
“maxxy york(!)”
“sar pe baithega kya”
“mere bhi button tute hue hain”
“tu kaun hai? Main chaiwaala!”
Some of the film references are badly done though. It almost loses the fun, one is tempted to go back to the original scene and appreciate its magic. I am reminded of a recent article on Noire, where we discussed which approaches of referencing make sense and which do not.
And I would say, from Last Local’s example, that the whole discussion makes more sense to me now. If there are too many of them, they do tend to take the fun away and get too explanatory at times. May be they should have been a tad subtle than being so overt. Abhay’s playing with the cards was purely Guy Ritchie, his mirror scene was Vincent Vega, and even our local references are there, the film posters(Main Hoon Naa) and the “ab tak chhappan” joke.
For once the hero doesn’t indulge sinfully in ‘herogiri’, the Rajni and Nana imitations are badly done, but I liked them not for their execution but for their intention.
Despite all the flaws, ECKLL is a celebration of the new spirit, a spirit which is courageous and experimental. If the film manages to evoke a laugh out of gore, it does justice to the genre. Regarding the characters, more than creating animated sketches out of them, it pushes them to the backseat and lets you concentrate on the otherwise relegated things. This is what I call ‘having fun’ cinema.
Abhay Deol gets to do his first fultu cinema outing, and he almost excels save for a few bits. The actor who plays the cop is the find of the lot. An effortless genius, he puts life in his deadpan lines.
Bravo, Sanjay Khanduri!
Tags: Medium
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I agree. I really liked the movie. Especially for a Debutant director to touch a subject like tht..Fab..:)>- Though I wonder when they will release it over seas..
I guess overseas is not coming in near future, they have good chances of satellite rights and DVD release though, the word of mouth has been strong.
Arre Tushar bhai, abhi UK mein release nahin huwi yaar!!
But will check it out once it does!
Steve Bhai! will wait for your verdict on this one, rest assured you wont be disappointed
aur bataao, what music have you been listening to lately. waiting for some rahman man! i heard he is coming up with some tamil films now, one feat Vijay, and alos some independent music on his music label, KM Music…
man this is an awesome movie.. at first I gave it a pass bcos of neha dupia..thought that it was a sleazy B grade..but man do you get hooked right on to it.. its comic thriller all the way..the writer , and director have done a really good job.. abhay.. the cop..the eunuch..the hawaldar…all awesome characters..the line I liked most …
“hey no cheating”… watch it man..paisa vasool
I would’ve enjoyed this film more had my DVD not stopped every nanosecond. ~X(
It made me laugh with its surrealism. It was like one of those surreal dreams you have when you are trying to decide whether you are awake or dreaming, like the chaiwaala scene.
)
And the guy with the ears? What the hell, man? LOL!
i loved it…this was 2007 and there hasn’t been such a movie in Indian cinema before and even after this…
Yup Rasik, you truly live to your name, this review was as underrated as this movie…or less…lol.