Country and Year: India (2006)
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Bipasha Basu, Saif Ali Khan, Naseeruddin Shah

Review By: David Austin and Jeff
Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars (very good)

Omkara, Vishal Bharadwaj’s long-awaited transplantation of Othello to the violent world of rural Indian politics, is finally here. And while Omkara does not quite reach the heights of Maqbool (Bharadwaj’s prior Shakespeare adaptation), it is an outstanding, exciting production that solidifies Bharadwaj’s place in the pantheon of India’s finest directors. Intense, clever, sexy and well-acted, this film single-handedly restored our faith in the contemporary Bollywood musical following a seemingly endless spate of drecky Hollywood rip-offs.

The tragedy of Othello, and hence the plot, should be familiar to most. Bharadwaj stays true to the essential elements of the story, but transplants the action from Venice and Cyprus to a rural town in India. Instead of a dark and alienated Moorish general among Italians, Othello is now Omkara (Ajay Devgan), a half-caste rabble-rouser and gangster in the employ of the local leader/jailbird/parliamentary candidate Bhai-saab (Naseeruddin Shah). In the riveting opening sequence, Omkara’s men break up the wedding of his beloved Dolly (Kareena Kapoor in the Desdemona role) to the hapless Rajju (the Roderigo character), and then face a tense gunpoint confrontation with Dolly’s angry father. Though Omkara and Dolly are truly in love, he is stung by the parting words of her bitter father, which echo Shakespeare’s “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee” (Othello, I, iii).

Meanwhile, as Omkara’s status rises in the wake of Bhaisaab’s release from prison, he must choose a replacement leader from among his lieutenants. Portentously, he elevates carefree student-leader Kesu (Vivek Oberoi, perfectly cast as Cassio) over hardened brigand Langda (Saif Ali Khan, who shines as Iago). Langda is not pleased, and hatches a nefarious scheme to turn Omkara against Kesu and Dolly by convincing him that they are having an affair. Omkara, though a fierce warrior, is not experienced in love and, as in the original play, ill-served by his ability to judge character. Langda weaves a web of trickery, enlisting the unwitting aid of Kesu and his lover, the dancer Billo (a smoking hot Bipasha Basu as Bianca), Roderigo, and Dolly herself, as well as his own wife (and Omkara’s sister), the earthy Indu (Konkona Sen Sharma as Emilia). While some minor characters suffer different fates, the essential elements of the original story are all intact as the plot moves to its preordained conclusion. And though this bloody climax is inevitable, it is shocking nonetheless, powerfully played and strikingly staged.

Saif Ali Khan’s performance is far and away Omkara’s greatest. A few years after his delightfully nasty performance in Ram Gopal Varma’s Ek Hasina Thi, popular leading man Khan proves here that he is Bollywood’s best villain following the death of the legendary Amrish Puri. Khan’s Iago is a likable, tough man of few words - one perfectly understands why Omkara would trust him and fall prey to his manipulations.

The rest of the cast is also excellent, and it’s a tribute to Vishal Bharadwaj that he has been able to assemble such a group of heavy hitters in one film. Perennial screen badass Ajay Devgan (Company, The Legend of Bhagat Singh) does not have much to do as Omkara other than look sullen, but he does it well. Kareena Kapoor (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…) is quite believable as a college girl who finds herself in a world she does not understand. Pretty boy Oberoi (Company, Yuva) is the perfect patsy. Naseeruddin Shah (Maqbool, Monsoon Wedding, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is absolutely magnetic and a bit scary as Bhai-saab. Finally, even with minimal screen time, Bipasha Basu is an absolute force of nature. In her first musical number, she dances over the heads of hundreds of drunken extras, singing a gloriously randy number whose lyrics address the many raunchy metaphorical uses of beedi cigarettes. Without hyperbole, it is one of the sexiest five minutes in the history of the recorded image. Until now Basu has mostly been wasting her time in trashy films – here she shows she is ready for the big time.

While the middle of the film drags a bit (Othello has a lot of set-up, after all), Bharadwaj has a lot of fun along the way mixing signifiers. Clearly a fan of spaghetti westerns, Bhardwaj has Devgan spend much of the film riding a horse and walking around in a poncho that looks like it is on loan from the Man With No Name. Crashing up against all of those elements are the constant cell-phone usage of nearly every character which Bharadwaj integrates seamlessly into the four hundred-year-old story, and the intentionally hilarious use of one of the schmaltziest songs of the 1980s. (Omkara shows that Bharadwaj clearly has a devious sense of humor, one that was not on display at all in Maqbool.) Also, like the film itself, Bharadwaj’s fine musical compositions have a simultaneously modern and timeless feel to them. It doesn’t hurt that Bharadwaj once again has the assistance of India’s pre-eminent lyricist Gulzar.

Although Maqbool had a more gripping story, Omkara certainly bests that earlier film on a technical level, with gorgeous wide-screen cinematography (the vistas and valleys are stunning), thunderous sound and elaborate sets. With Omkara, Bharadwaj confirms that he has a distinct authorial voice, one that we hopefully will be privileged to continue to watch develop.

Recommended: Definitely. Fans of Indian cinema (and Shakespeare) won’t want to miss this one, and for those who keep putting off seeing their first Indian film, this is a good one to start with as the musical numbers are well-integrated and do not overwhelm the story.

© David Austin and Jeff

Omkara is currently screening in New York at the Imaginasian theater. (See here for more details).