For starters, I am not a huge Anurag Kashyap fan (I do read Passion for Cinema, yet...). I did not hate NO SMOKING - I thought it had all the makings of a genre breaker. What went wrong was probably choosing John to play the lead. Not using any offensive words, he is as wooden as the table on which my laptop rests as I type away to glory. He could have gone with an actor with a permanent anguish and it might have worked. I loved Black Friday - the music, the movie, the actors - perfecto. And I loved the story in Satya. I think AK goes wrong when he tries to balance sense with sensibility. Does not work !!

In Dev D, what works is that he gives two hoots to anyone and everyone. Censor - two hoots. Moral authorities - two hoots. Public - two hoots. Shahrukh - two hoots. That kind of attitude works like magic for a movie like this. You cannot, not show abuse and create a Dev D. For dummies, walking with a fake liquor bottle with your face powder and mascara shining through - aka Shahrukh - does not work !! Abhay is your "two hoots" personified. The man is 30+, yet has not done a single conventional hero movie, at least the kind of movie in which he gets the sexier girl at the end. Believes in defying convention and redefining it. So, that was a smart choice to make. 

He has a story to direct, which has been grounded from the lofty ideals Sharat Babu planted it in. Not that there is anything wrong about Bengali literature, but it revels in being ethereal. Not the kind of thing, which works for me.  The heart of the story is what most of us have been through, either in our own lives or have seen others living it. What works is that there is no repentance and full marks given to the intelligence of the audience. I loved the "main aa raha hoon", the mattress on the fields, the vodka with coke, the hotel tajmahal and the very foreigner looking Mrs. Chunni -  trivial details like these which make the movie special. Which shows the director cared to look and analyze and add details, at all places where I, the humble audience in the backrow could watch it.

And how could I ignore Paro - Mahi Gill is fantastic as the headstrong "JAT"ni. The handpump scene was awesome - full marks there. And put that alongside the clothes washing masterpiece in Dev's room and you have my ideal heroine there. Someone who loves and loves like no one else does, but is not afraid to move on when life does. I like their last scene together - the conversation on the door. That's her moment perfecto, where she steals the scene, the show and the audience. 

Kalki needs grooming. She has done well in scenes with Abhay but seems transfixed and wooden in the first half of her story. Guess she can play spicy better than shocked. But she has potential - best witnessed in the dirty talk on the phone, first encounter with Dev scenes. 

Everything was just perfect till the momo scene and that's where I lost you Mr. Kashyap. Why did you choose a saccharine ending to such a gritty, grounded movie. Dev seems like a zombie in the mental hospital or some other worldly alien in the bathtub scene and I wondered then, were 3 hours becoming much too long for you - to choose that ending. That ending is perhaps the only blot in the movie. In that perfect perfect movie.