CORPORATE

Madhur Bhandarkarji is a precious talent, a great man. An individual who strives to expose the sham that is society. His heart aches at the decay that has set into urban culture, he watches the degradation of Indian values and lashes out in anger. His philosophy is pretty simple:- Rich people are, most definately, bastards. They screw anything that move, are scheming sexual deviants, live spiritually unfulfilled lives of deciet and lies and more so, luring and exploiting the unsuspecting middle class into thier crass lifestyle.

In Page 3, he had chronicled the decay among the socialites with subtle humor (bra falling on bald guy! Priceless), intelligent dialogue (gay guy says," Nature ne hi mujhe aise banaya hain. Stright from the hallowed first page of Bombay Times), and heart-wrenching reality (Rich people screw lil inncoent kids along with thier phirang friends). It was but natural that he be conferred a national award for his groundbreaking work. Along with Saif Ali Khan who scored for his brilliant, terrific, natural, superduperzuper performance in 'Hum Tum', Mahur Bhandarkar had taken Hindi cinema to new heights.

With 'Corporate' Bhandarkar takes his vision into the entrails of the dirty world of business and digs out the dirt. The characters include the heads of two warring corporate groups and thier posse which include a naive newcomer, an item girl, a bad ass brother-in-law, scheming wives, informers, politicains, spin doctors, detectives, holy men, the media.. you know the routine. And our guide to this sleazy world which thrives on double standards is Nishigandha, a divorcee who has managed to work her way up the ladder. So now you just have to play the game of who screws who, who cheats who and who bribes who and you get the whole two hours of the film. Being an auteur, Bhandarkarji brings his signature style, like George Lucas and Kurosawa in 'Hidden Fortress', two bumblers who provide comic relief by making 'pun' laden comments on words like 'sleep over'. If you're expecting brilliant flashes of humor like a bra on a bald man, you're bound to be disappointed. Bhandarkarji has aimed for a much darker tone this time around.

The production values and most of the acting are straight from classic late night news shows like 'Sansani' and 'ACP Arjun' only with the camera paning loving at every inch of cleavage. This is 'art' mind you and whats art without a few breasts.

Bhandarkarji's greatest success is that at the end of two hours you walk out of the cinema realizing who great it is to be middle-class. We're cheerful naive folks whose eyes pop out in utter surprise when they see the price lists in 5 star hotels. We're so cute, aren't we? Unlike the horrible appaling rich who just can't seem keep a control on thier bloody zippers.

Thank you Bhandarkarji once again. We hope and pray that your shelf will play host to many other trophies. But most of all, we hope and pray that your next movie will continue this legacy, this vendetta of yours and that us poor folks will be saved from a society that is increasingly diseased and horny.