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Which about sums it up. For all the talk of songless-ness and being different and reinventing the genre (if remaking it in the standard Hollywood mode can be called reinvention; perhaps 'rescuing it from the Ramseys and the white-sari-clad woman with a blood-streaked face' is more appropriate) - all of which were true - what mattered in the end was whether this film could sustain the tension and make you empathise with the characters. And it did. The background score is really effective; camerawork is creative; the leads act flawlessly; there's a liberal sprinkling of red herrings, the characters are believable, and we're spared the quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo that mars so many films in this genre. While making a horror film is inherently a derivative process, Bhoot manages to avoid seeming cliched, both by the standards of Hindi filmdom (okay, that's not hard - the absence of either a dak bangla or a kabristan, as well as the aforementioned white sari, pretty much ensures that) as well as, to a lesser extent, Hollywood (which it is closer to in 'spirit'). Not by any means a pathbreaking film, but a very well-made one nonetheless. Excellent! Go watch it!

Company is a very taut, very dark look at the ruthlessness with which the Mumbai underworld syndicates operate, and the games people play when their only motivations are greed, power-lust and more than a little pride. It focuses on how important inter-personal relationships are to the success of any business venture (here, the venture happens to be organised crime), and how the fraying of such relationships can be used effectively by law-enforcement agencies to bust gangs like the Company of the title.

Performances: spot on. Ajay Devgan is chilling yet wonderfully controlled in one of the two leading roles, and Vivek Oberoi's intensity in his role as the violent, ruthless yet eventually human underling is riveting. The women's roles are small but well-written and well-performed; all three - Antara Mali, Manisha Koirala, and Seema Biswas - do a good job. Mohanlal is also excellent, and I actually thought his Malayalam-accented Hindi was perfect for the role.

At times, watching Company was like watching a particularly well-crafted documentary. I love the way Ram Gopal Verma depicts Mumbai in all its raw, hustling energy. The locations all seemed very real, as did the situations, characters and dialogue (which was realistic and street-smart without being particularly profane, which I think was quite an achievement). I also liked the fact that the voiceover was in the same slightly edgy dialect of Mumbaiyya Hindi, so that one felt like the speaker was a part of the same world as the protagonists.

My only problem with the film was that I found Chowta's background score over-loud and often jarring in its attempt to build up mood when the director was doing so very successfully anyway, leading to it seeming redundant and sometimes irritating. There were moments when it overshadowed the dialogue, and this was really annoying. Over-emphasis is something this film could have done without, and it is this that holds me back from calling Company a total triumph. Pity. Khallas is a great song, though. :-)

Interestingly, the film manages to combine esentially amoral characters with an eventual denouement that drives home a moral message (very subtly, though). I'm not sure where I stand on this, I tend to see the 'good guys win eventually' message as something of a cop-out to the conventions of Hindi cinema. Nonetheless, if this makes the film more palatable to mainstream audiences, so be it. I'm particularly interested to see how a film like this, which for all intents and purposes pushes the boundaries of 'Bollywood' film-making in a totally new direction with its absence of conventional songs, extremely moody lighting, heroes who really aren't that heroic, realism in dialogue, characterisation and setting, and very flashy, almost MTV-like editing, (all things that have been tried in the last two years in several Hindi films, but not together and not with so much skill)does at the Indian box office. If it succeeds, then it proves that the success (however limited) of Satya, Chandni Bar, Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai, which in their own way moved Hindi cinema away from the formula, was not a flash in the pan, and will hopefully inspire more experimentation. What's certain is that with this film Verma has proven that he is perhaps the most innovative mainstream film-maker in India today, and I await more films from him with interest. He seems to be getting better with every film.

Overall, a must-watch, especially if you like the gangster/noir genre.

I grew up in New Delhi, where this film is set, so perhaps I had an easier time identifying with the situations and issues in this film than the average viewer - and I throughly enjoyed it.

Mira Nair has really managed to capture the mix of confusion, chaos and sheer fun that is typical of all Indian weddings (which is often the only time most members of an extended family manage to actually meet up), along with the 'ostentation' and sheer joie-de-vivre that typifies the specifically Punjabi variant of the Indian wedding (cue the singing and dancing, which was grrreat), without shying away from tackling some serious issues that often lie under the surface in many families, and the complex dynamics of the interaction between members of an extended family. One great thing about this film for me was that it captured how a lot of people feel about the extended family - not always pleasant or easy to deal with, with lots of internal tensions, often messy, but in the end something one would be loath to not have around in the background, and a source of strength.

What differentiated this film from a lot of movies from India that focus on weddings was its sheer authenticity. Every character seemed real. The language was perfect - this is how people like us speak when we're in India (or with others from India or Pakistan) - a mixture of Hindi, English and any other language we happen to have in common, usually in the space of a single sentence. This is probably not easy for people who haven't grown up in multi-lingual societies to appreciate, but this is exactly what it is like and for us it's as natural as speaking in English all the time is for your average American. It does seem to be beyond the abilites of many people who've reviewed the film on this site to understand though, but I suspect this is sheer laziness. I watched it with Americans, Colombians and Mexicans, and everyone loved it. As for the accents: well, that's how Punjabis speak English, so too bad if you find it tough to understand. I found the accents in Gone with the Wind incomprehensible, too. :)I'm really glad Mira Nair didn't compromise with the complexities of spoken 'Hinglish' to make the film more comprehensible for an international audience, as that would have robbed the film of one of its principal charms. Contrast this with the atrocious dialogue in Fire', which rang false for every moment of its running time.

On to specifics: I thought Naseeruddin Shah, Shefali Shetty and Vijay Raaz were simply superb, and also liked Lilette Dubey's turn as a typical upper-middle-class Punjabi housewife a lot. Naseer is such a wonderful actor, and it was a pleasure to see him tackle a role that was good enough for him, after a long time. He handled comedy, frustration, tenderness, confusion, pride, ... all with typical ease. Ditto for Shefali, a well-known TV star in India, in her first big-screen role (as far as I know). Hope to see more of her! Tillottama Shome as Alice looked lovely and acted really convincingly too, and Vijay Raaz's paan-chewing (or should that be marigold-scoffing?) Bihari tent-man was both hilarious in his exasperating-ness, and touching in his eventual genuineness.

Another high point was the soundtrack, with its mixture of Hindi filmi hits (old and new), Punjabi bhangra, and ghazals and for once a traditional Punjabi wedding song (unlike the syrupy versions Hindi films are replete with).

Also, I liked the fact that no attempt was made in the outdoor shots to make Delhi, which I love but which is in many parts a chaotic mess :)) look prettier or more sanitised than it is. The city looked totally real, which is hardly surprising given that everything was shot on location and as a resident of the city, I could actually work out where the Vermas lived, went shopping, and so on. This is the most accurate depiction of life as I know it that I have seen on-screen, ever. If you're an upper-middle-class Punjabi, this is how you live, eat , speak, marry ....

So overall, very authentic, very real, very amusing, very satisfying. Only quibbles are perhaps that I couldn't work out why the hell Aditi was seeing that sleaze Vikram (unless he was just amazing in bed or something) and I did find Vikram's talk show a bit much and a slightly unsubtle way of introducing the 'culture-clash' motif.