Corporate
This weekend I had a chance to see two 'realist' movies almost back to back. But frankly speaking both left me disappointed.
Starting with Corporate. "Madhur Bhandarkar's hard-hitting feature based on the reality of the world of entrepreneurship".
Hard hitting? sure!
Reality? Wow, "reality" sure is scary!
but wait a minute, how would reality be hard-hitting if it wasnt kind of scary? Pointless question? read on and then tell me.
Corporate is the story of two competitors in the corporate world, their fights, the means of their fight(obviously the question of ethics has been embroiled in this part) and the effect on the life of one female.Nishi(Bipasha Basu) potrays the role of a young female with a sharp business acumen who works for one of the companies in question and has a soft spot for the brother in law, Ritesh(KK Menon) of the boss.
The movie starts with the usual comparison of the two companies and how they both keep trying to snatch the goodies from the other.
The twist comes when the love birds of the movie(yup KK n Bips) manage to find out about a top secret plan of the rivals. They come out with a plan of their own and phase it out faster than the competitor to take control of the market. During all this they discover that their product has some quality issues which would be very harmful to the health of the public using it. Business sense(read profit vs loss argument) gives rise to the need of continuing with the product. The rival discover the problem and get the company into a spot of bother by bringing the issue in full spotlight of media and public.
Nishi is made the scapegoat with the assurance of being rescued, and well as you would accept from a "realistic" movie, she is still left helpless and 'un-rescued' even at the end of the movie.
The big question to be asked here is, has Madhur Bhandarkar made Sex, Corruption and unethical gameplay in real world his signature style? It was good in Page 3, but in Corporate it seems very less attractive.
To me, Page 3 was a very good movie but Corporate falls short in almost all aspects.
The USP of Page 3 was all the new faces and their great performances, while in Corporate critically acclaimed KK Menon fails to look good. Bipasha looks different, but again doesnt act that well.
The only performance i would recomment watching is that of Rajat Kapoor, in the role of the uncompromising only-profit-minded businessman Vinay Sehgal. I first noticed this guy in Dil Chahta Hai and since then i have been impressed by each of his performances.
Why Watch It:This is supposed to be the part 2 in the trilogy of Bhandarkar, therefore if the third part turns out to be another stellar movie, you would hate to have missed out on the second part in the series
(yea, thats the best reason i could think off!)
What to ignore:The same old story of business rivals endulging in unethical means and in the end both reaching a compromise to leave the scapegoat at the gallows.
Rating: 5.5/10
(initially i gave 5, but Rajat's performance and occasional brilliance in direction and cinematography earned them that additional 0.5 point! you think i am stingy? you betcha!)
Coming Soon: Omkara. At a post near you. ;-)
