Saturday, December 21, 2002

thorns ... postmodern revisionist blaxploitative slick pastiche

coming soon ... : a more comprehensive outpouring.

In the meantime, if you haven't already seen Kaante, catch up on source material with The Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, Heat, Fight Club, Snatch and the openings of Warner Bros movies.

Trivia/SPOILERS {NOTE: If you caught up with the movies mentioned above, the denouement should not be tough to figure out.}

* who is the undercover cop: hint One: Who's the narrator? What's the source? Elementary, my dear Puttan

* who is the undercover cop: hint Two: When the captured cop (see cool trivia nugget following) tells them (what the audience already knows) that one of them is an undercover cop, and there's the languid "settling in" of this heavy truth, who's the dude whose song makes it to the background? (and is mercifully truncated before complete aural destruction)

* As if to acknowledge the underplayed inspiration from The Usual Suspects, misdirector Sanjay Gupta names the hapless cop who is after the unholy six McQuarrie. Christopher McQuarrie wrote the script for the Bryan Singer film, won an Oscar for it, AND was also a police detective in real life. Nice touch.

* Another song omitted from the film is Dil Kya Kare, which is just as well, considering that this number pales in comparison to the electronica-mix-heavy heady other songs.

* In true homage to all action movies involving social scum and inefficient police machinery set in the expressionist city of LA, this movie also bases itself there. Complete with numerous shots (some new, some stock from source American movies) of the cityscape (which, unlike well-made LA films, add nothing to the narrative), excessive abuse of yellow filters, slow motion (again, no purpose) and guns.

addendum (october 28, 2003): Just to underscore the overt Thums Up plugs in the film, here's a newsitem about the advertising deal.

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