cineTALK Section 18C A protection we cannot afford to lose

Baazaar

DIRECTOR: Gauravv K. Chawla

STARRING: Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Radhika Apte, Chitrangda Singh

I can’t recall a single notable (or even non-notable) Indian film based on the plunging dips and giddying highs of the stock market. Do you remember Harshad Mehta? How could you forget the podgy stockbroker who made thousands of Indians rich overnight and then it all ended in a financial mess in no time at all?

Saif Ali Khan’s Shakun Kothari’s destiny run on the same lines. Except that Saif as the wily ruthless

Machiavellian stockbroker is everything that Harshad Mehta would have wanted to be. This is Saif’s most gloriously written and performed part, meaty witty and wicked. He chews into it exposing a sacred hunger that I didn’t notice in his last over-hyped outing.

Saif as Shakun is a true-blue Gujju who won’t let neo-affluence corrupt his cultural integrity. He slips into Gujjufications with the unrehearsed cuteness of tycoon, who has long ceased to be cute to everyone, including his own wife and children.

When debutant Rohan Mehra enters the plot as Rizwan there is no Shakun Kothari around. We know Rizwan idolizes Shakun and wants to be like