• Siddharth Pillai

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    on Sep 29 2007 @ 3:07 am
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« Johnny Gaddaar - The Music | Home | Johnny Gaddar (2007) »


Johnny Gaddar- Keep your Eyes on the Loot

Shriram Raghavan’s electric caper ‘Johnny Gaddar’ begins in reverential silence as it doffs its hat to the pulpmeisters- Vijay Anand and James Hadley Chase, black and white photographs accompanying the written tribute.

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Thus, begins its no-holds-barred obsession with images- pulp and kinky washed over with the electric tangerine and sound- retro Rafi by way of pure spin jhankaar.

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Glance at the posters. Imagine the colors leaking out the posters. Imagine the charcters come to life. Imagine a low-life world of neon and intrigue. That is Johnny Gadar. Popculture overdrive. From the insane title-credits that implode with fury and the smudgy color of dime-store novels like you bend a comic in your hands and release your thumb to see the pages flip ahead in a kinetic kaliedescope. The posters make it clear- it’s a genre of pure provocation, exciting your baser senses. A colorful mindless interplay of sex and violence rushing through an obligatory plot mechanism like a Mumbai local.

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In true caper style, Raghavan wasting absolutely no time, sets up his principal characters- twisted copcop.jpg, an aging crook who still plays by the golden rules of another age108b.jpg, a couple of if-you-have-friends-like-this-then-you-need-no-enemies that will help electify the dynamicsthecochranbrothers.jpg, the blunt instrumenthenchman.gif, the young tyketommy.jpg and the broadsfemale_trouble.jpg.

Spin the concoction on a roulette of drugsn20858.jpg and moneyfool1.jpg and that one element, that raises ‘Johnny Gaddar’ from the ‘pop, enjoy and evaporate’ likes of ‘Ek Chalis..’- nostalgia.

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Visually, Raghavan hits bulls eye. Editor Pooja Surti, cinematographer C.K. Muralitharan and the set and dress designers, the make-up all conspire to elevate every visual to a push button that have you hinging onto seats and chewing nails until they hurl us into the next scenario. The effect is vertiginous, pulsating and psycadelic. ew_femmefatale.jpgvertigo.jpg

How does one put the soundtrack?

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A pastiche of the old and new. Like an ACD playing on a phonograph or a vinyl playing in something digital mixed with classic soundbytes like an open air screening of an old pulp film is beng held nearby. Absolute masterpiece that endows the pulp storyline with a rhythm, beat and verve.

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The cast is pitch perfect with Dharam Paaji drawing on his caper days and the slur-of-speech-by-way-of-Bagpiper pulling off with ease the loss and dilemma of the aging gangster, Vinay Pathak and Zakir Hussain playing each other the way only character actors can, Govind Namdeo hammering the sadist down, debutant Niel Mukesh exhuding sinister confidence and the femme fatales 180px-noorchidsformissblandishf.jpg Rimi Sen and Ashwini Kalsekar holding thier own in a way that give the artist of the James Hadley Chase covers, a muse.

‘Johnny Gadar runs on pure vintage pulp gas rolls2.jpg and Shriram Raghavan wears it proudly on the sleeve. Style over substance… but what style!

and if one ever needs an argument on how glorious superficiality can be… scroll down….

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(images courtesy- www.johncoulhart.com, www.dvdbeaver.com, hervoleas.typepad.com, www.tsutpen.blogpsot.com, www.wikipdeia.org, www.discomusic.com, whatsnew.mastikamantra.com, lib.berkely.edu, rexbox.com, thehotspotonline.com, forwardnotiontheatre.com, fantasticfiction.co.uk)

23 Responses to “Johnny Gaddar- Keep your Eyes on the Loot”

  1. Sourav on September 29th, 2007 3:29 am

    Killers compilation of pics siddharth

  2. Siddharth on September 29th, 2007 3:54 am

    thanks man.. just what Johnny Gaddar is.. way more killer..

  3. Sourav on September 29th, 2007 4:31 am

    saw it and liked it..the retro feel is killer..dig on retro..imagine the titles..well done titles.

  4. night on September 29th, 2007 7:22 am

    Wow @ da pix! To use Sourav’s words - a “killer compilation” of retro-kitsch artwork.

  5. night on September 29th, 2007 7:37 am

    ps. LOVED your imaginative and spot-on writing, Siddharth, especially the 1st para - awesome descriptions!

  6. Vikram on September 29th, 2007 7:58 am

    Hey,lovely posters man.Where did u dig them all up :D.

  7. Surendra Hiwarale on September 29th, 2007 10:22 am

    Hey Siddharth,
    I wish people see it in the same light as you did… cos that’s how its meant to be watched…

  8. Tushar on September 29th, 2007 11:19 pm

    Saale Raapchaandoos, poster ki dukaan!
    nice article man, I am checking the ‘glorious superficiality’ tomorrow…

  9. Vasan Bala on September 30th, 2007 1:38 am

    superb sid…that compilation was awesome…. :d/

  10. night on September 30th, 2007 4:03 am

    “I wish people see it in the same light as you did

  11. Pratim D. Gupta on September 30th, 2007 4:19 am
  12. night on September 30th, 2007 4:37 am

    Going to watch it anyway, but Pratim, your mention of the Don style title sequence has sold me! Love Don and have a thing for cool, imaginative credits/title sequences.

  13. Amit on September 30th, 2007 4:40 am

    I just saw Jhonny G and then read ur article! Sid, superb description of an excellent movie…I wish movie runs to keep shriram motivated to bring out different indian cinema

  14. chavanni on September 30th, 2007 7:22 am

    review in hindi by ajay brahmatmaj…
    http://chavannichap.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post_28.html

  15. Tushar on October 1st, 2007 3:36 pm

    There are two kinds of films, ones that are brimming out of self-conviction, galvanized in their narcissistic love. You feel it from the word go. And then there are those which take an entire length of self-exploration. They can

  16. Tushar on October 2nd, 2007 10:40 am

    and finally someone sums it up beautifully:

    “But give Raghavan this much: once he grows up and gets over his I

  17. parth on October 2nd, 2007 11:11 pm

    Great great great movie……..

    India’s answer to american cult’s which grow on Writed CD circuit..Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction etc…

    I jus hope ppl actually go n c it in theatre n not on CDs,TV repeats a la Andaz Apna Apna

  18. Review - Johnny Gaddar » without giving the movie away… on October 11th, 2007 7:27 am

    [...] Siddharth Pillai, Passion for Cinema Rating: Thumbs up …one element, that raises ‘Johnny Gaddar’ from the ‘pop, enjoy and evaporate’ likes of ‘Ek Chalis..’- nostalgia…. See full review [...]

  19. abhishek on November 2nd, 2007 4:58 am

    :d saala
    sid GADDAR……:)
    too good dude….

  20. The Art of Reviewing Movies - The Newspaper Blog on November 7th, 2007 7:26 am

    [...] Johnny Gaddar- Keep your Eyes on the Loot [...]

  21. BollywoodPlusPlus on January 16th, 2008 1:37 am

    3 hrs back: Had seen some references to various characters in Johnny
    Gaddaar in some blogs, and the song Move your body tonight’s guitar
    riff was infectious. So just picked up the DVD without a lot of
    expectations. After all the only two familiar faces in the movie were
    Dharmendra and Vinay Pathak.

    Now after 3 hrs: The movie is nothing shot of brilliant, in all
    film-making departments.

    The script: Tight from the first frame till the last, never leave you
    to catch a breath.

    The cinematography: a treat! Well, nothing out of the world,
    spectacular, of sort, but very very subtle, and simply rocks! Some
    shots create a tension/curiosity and resolves itself few moments
    later. Some shots like when Neil is dreaming of getting beaten by Shiva
    and then camera pans onto a sleeping Neil, on the same shot - more than
    the shot itself, I admire the thought process of the cinematographer.
    This whole create-tension-then-reveal aspect of the cinematography is
    truly in-sync with the movie. Some shots like Zakir Hussain falling on
    the glass center table in slowmo is very well shot. I kept rewinding
    many scenes like that. Truly artistic. A+

    Music: The tremolo efct of the guitar in the title song is even more
    infectious than the Hard Kaur’s guitar riff (in ‘Move your body’)! And
    btw, the harmonium and ‘doob ja mere pyar mein’ over a hip-hop number
    is absolutely a riot.

    Editing: Sleek. Of course, half of my appreciation for cinamtography
    couldn’t have been possible without a solid editing.

    Acting: Everyone from main characters to the SHiva’s mom character do a
    very good job. Zakir Hussain and Vinay Pathak are just treat to watch.
    As newcomers, if 2007 belonged to Deepika Padukone (of OSO) lookwise, I
    think the year belongs to Neil for both look and acting! Would love to
    watch more of him.

    Direction: Bravo! I must admit, haven’t seen any of Sriram’s movies
    before, but its my homework to watch some of them! Hope to see more of
    his work in future. I hear the movie was not released worldwide, its
    sad to see many junk movies are released with much fanfare, but gems
    like this goes unnoticed. Fantastic direction, and to bring out such
    stellar performance out of newcomers as well as lesser known actors, is
    admirable.

    Overall, the movie Rocks, and one of the best of the year (2007)
    alongwith Metro, Bheja Fry, Jab We Met, Chak De India, and a few
    others.

  22. Dilshad on January 27th, 2008 11:09 am

    Johnny Gaddar is a great film. Just hope it is not a lift from a remote film one might stumble upon someday! Earlier, Sriram redid ‘Double Jeopardy’ as Ek hasina Thi and cornered undeserved praise!

  23. Dilshad on January 27th, 2008 11:13 am

    Earlier, Sriram redid

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