waisa bhi hota hai part II

with acknowledgements to diverse influences like RGV, ramesh sippy, the coen brothers, beat takeshi kitano and quentin tarantino, former creative head for MTV/Channel V, and the man responsible for Quick Gun Murugan and Udham Singh, Shanshanka Ghosh makes a darkly comic entertaining flick called waisa bhi hota hai part II. the film is divided into three parts (called part I, part II and part III: DUH!), with part II being the longest (and hence the title?). this is the story of a copywriter whose brother was an underworld informant, is having a live-in relationship with a cop, saves and befriends a gangster and ultimately destroys the two top gangs of the Bombay underworld. somewhere along the way we also meet the bazpur boys, a group of party sardars and a bengali who pack verve and a mean AK-47, along with being Mahima Choudhary fans. packed with songs that I hadn't liked so much initially, but work much much better on screen. The film is loaded with cameos too: Rabbi Shergill is on-screen singing lau.nDiyaa, which also features dance director Ganesh Acharya (last seen in Road), as well as the producers of the film AND director SG himself; shibani kashyap appears singing sajanaa; kailash kher is on screen for allaah ke ba.nde. maria goretti warsi (aka mrs arshad warsi), credited as "item" girl, appears as the on-screen image for sunidhi chauhan's jism. lots of cool frank dialogue, great moments, and deadpan black humour. great performances especially from arshad warsi, prashant narayanan (last seen in Chhal) and pratima kazmi as gangu tai. this is not jaane bhi do yaaron by a long shot, but think of a black-comic version of hrishikesh mukherjee, and you'll get the idea. all thumbs up.