I watched Oye Lucky......3 days after the terror strikes. In fact I wanted to get away from the horrific images—I wanted to laugh, probably a release!
The theatre had around 50-60 viewers, not more.
Oye Lucky...... worked for me on two fronts.
Because of Abhay Deol. Abhay Deol is a terrific actor in the making. He and Irfan Khan will most probably anchor the middle-of-the-road Hindi cinema for the next few years. Why middle-of-the-road? Because Yash Raj and Karan Johar will never need him and he is too good to be ignored! I heard of Abhay Deol when Socha Na Tha was released. My wife had seen the movie and she kept raving about this guy. I must admit that when I watched the movie, I liked what I saw. Coming to this movie, Abhay Deol plays Lucky, a boy from a lower-middle-class Delhi Sikh family, who joins the world of petty crime to essentially keep up with the Joneses! It is almost like Leo DiCaprio in the Spielberg caper, Catch Me If You Can but Deol allows no comparison because of a splendid performance. My pick is the scene where Deol is cornered and he has to surrender finally—the emotions he displays is outstanding.
Because of Dibakar Banerjee. Dibakar Banerjee is a young film director, who I thought made a brilliant first film, Khosla Ka Ghosla. To follow up with an equally well-made second film, Oye Lucky............must be a commendable effort. There are moments in the film that belong to Dibakar. Especially, the scene when young Lucky (played brilliantly) takes his girlfriend to a restaurant and how the waiter quickly seizes up the situation that the kid has no money and cracks jokes at the kid's expense. Or the whole scene when Lucky executes a heist at the house of the TV anchor, who ironically has made a name for covering such crimes on the television! Even the attention to detail is spot on-a look at Lucky's house is a case in point. My pick is the superb casting of Paresh Rawal, who plays the roles of three father figures at different phases of Lucky's life and who end up hoodwinking him. Like Imtiaz Ali (of Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met), Dibakar captures the Delhi of the lower-middle class very well.
I saw the movie three weeks back. I still have a smile. I am pretty convinced that the hall was empty that evening not because of the film, but people were too scared to step out of their homes!
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