Tag Archives: Deepak Dobriyal

Movie Review: Son of Sardaar 2 (2025)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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Hidden within Son of Sardaar 2‘s overstuffed story are some wonderfully executed performances — but, boy, do you have to sort through a lot of cruft to find them.

The sequel to 2012’s enjoyable Son of Sardaar finds naive nice guy Jassi Singh Randhawa (Ajay Devgn) waiting in Punjab for his British visa to come through so he can join his wife of 11 years, Dimple (Neeru Bajwa). When he finally gets it and reunites with her in Scotland, she immediately asks for a divorce.

Elsewhere in Scotland, a band of Pakistani-British musicians — Rabia (Mrunal Thakur), her step-daughter Saba (Roshni Walia), Mehwish (Kubbra Sait), and transgender woman Gul (Deepak Dobriyal) — is in trouble. Their leader Danish (Chunky Panday) — who is Rabia’s husband and Saba’s father — took off with a Russian woman, forcing Rabia to take charge of the group.

A chance encounter between Rabia and Jassi proves beneficial for both of them, even if she does stab him in the hand with a fork when they meet. Rabia gives Jassi a place to stay in exchange for pretending to be her husband and Saba’s dad. See, Saba wants to marry her rich boyfriend Gogi (Sahil Mehta), but his strict father Raja (Ravi Kishan) insists on meeting Saba’s family first. Not only does Jassi have to pretend to be Saba’s dad but a former soldier as well, while the rest of the women pretend to be Indian, Hindu, and definitely not musicians.

These are already a lot of characters to keep track of, and it gets worse when Gogi’s family is introduced. There’s his mom Premlata (Ashwini Kalsekar), his uncles Tony (the late Mukul Dev in his final role) and Titu (Vindu Dara Singh), and his white step-grandmother Kim (Emma Kate Vansittart). The step-grandmother’s backstory brings several other characters into the mix, and Sanjay Mishra shows up with a bunch of sidekicks as well. Heck, the movie even starts with Jassi dancing with Dimple and their four children, but that turns out to be a dream and they don’t actually have kids. There are too many people as-is without introducing imaginary ones.

New characters are dropped into the film following abrupt cuts, and it takes a while to figure out how they connect to the main story. Subplots sprawl and expand while previously introduced characters get less and less to do. The lack of focus forces the audience to keep track of threads and relationships when they should be allowed to sit back and laugh. Then again, there aren’t many standout bits, save one near the end involving Dimple.

Son of Sardaar 2 isn’t all bad, thanks to the actors. Devgn is still endearing as the innocent guy who stumbles into trouble. Thakur’s feisty energy pairs well opposite Devgn and keeps the story moving. Sait plays her musician character as charmingly caffeinated, and Kishan’s straitlaced performance as the strict dad defines the stakes for Jassi and crew.

The delightful surprise of the film is Dobriyal’s portrayal of Gul. Dobriyal is a tremendous actor with plenty of stellar work on his resume, but the fact that he brings such gravity and tenderness to a character in a rather silly comedy is impressive. Gul is the voice of reason and authority when things get too chaotic. I can’t speak to the authenticity of the way she’s written as a trans woman (there’s some dialogue about the man inside her versus the woman inside her that feels odd), but Dobriyal plays her respectfully. Her being trans fuels some jokes, but she is never the butt of the joke. Dobriyal won’t let her be.

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Movie Review: Sector 36 (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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One of Netflix’s most challenging Original Hindi films makes insightful social commentary in a fictional retelling of a real-life tragedy.

Sector 36 is based on the 2006 Noida serial murders and takes place in approximately the same area at the same time. Over the course of a couple of years, more than twenty children go missing from a slum in Sector 36 populated by poor families who’ve migrated from other parts of India to find work near Delhi. Inspector Ram Charan Pandey (Deepak Dobriyal) — the police officer in charge of the area — tells each parent the same thing: the kid will turn up, just hang your “Missing” poster on the board with all of the other posters. That’s as far as his investigations ever go.

The audience already knows what’s happening to the missing children. They’re being abducted, raped, and murdered by Prem (Vikrant Massey), caretaker of a large home next to the slum owned by businessman Balwar Singh Bassi (Akash Khurana). Prem disposes of parts of the bodies in the sewers outside the house, so he isn’t going out of his way to conceal his crimes. Since the police won’t investigate, he can do what he wants.

That changes when Prem mistakenly tries to abduct Ram Charan’s daughter Vedu (Ihana Kaur) during a festival. Prem is masked, so Ram Charan doesn’t see his face after he drops Vedu and runs off. However, the close encounter is enough for the inspector to follow up on some of the tips provided by other parents of missing children, one of whom was last seen entering Bassi’s house.

It’s quite the indictment of Ram Charan’s lack of empathy that he isn’t compelled to act until his own daughter is endangered, but he’s undeterred once he begins. Yet he quickly realizes that his own prior laziness is not the only obstacle standing in the way of justice for the missing kids. His interview with Bassi is cut short when the businessman calls his old school friend, Jawahar Rastogi (Darshan Jariwala) — Ram Charan’s boss. Rastogi tells the inspector to back off and suspends him when he doesn’t.

At the same time that Ram Charan is warned against investigating further, the child of a rich industrialist is abducted and held for ransom. Every resource at the police department’s disposal is thrown at retrieving the child and catching his kidnappers. Ram Charan sees where the department’s priorities lie, and they aren’t with the citizens of Sector 36.

Systems theorist Stafford Beer coined the phrase: “The purpose of a system is what it does.” Sector 36 is a perfect example of that phenomenon. The purpose of the police force that Ram Charan works for is not to protect the innocent, or solve crimes in an effort to give them justice. It’s to protect the rich and keep the poor vulnerable–basically, to ensure nothing threatens the current power structure.

I’m not qualified to speak to caste elements that may factor into Sector 36‘s story, but the film does a wonderful job illustrating how those at the top of the class hierarchy foment discord among those beneath them in order to maintain their own positions. Ram Charan feels superior to those living in the slum he oversees and lords his authority over the officers working under him. Rastogi knows that any of those lower officers would jump at the chance to take Ram Charan’s place. Because Prem works in a comfortable house for a boss with connections, he feels superior to those migrant workers living in the slum, even though he came from a small village himself.

Yet even as powerful men like Bassi and Rastogi purport to look out for those who report to them, they really only look out for one another. They use the system to maintain their protected positions. Ram Charan, Prem, the other cops, and the migrant workers all have more in common with one another than Bassi or Rastogi — but you could never convince any of them that that’s true.

Director Aditya Nimbalkar and screenwriter Bodhayan Roychaudhury convey all this through compelling character interactions and clever pacing. There’s a real level of finesse from a first-time feature director and first-time screenwriter. It’s a little less surprising when you realize that Nimbalkar previously worked as an associate director for Vishal Bhardwaj, whose productions are basically a farm system for future directorial talent.

The main thing working against Sector 36 early on — besides a subject matter that will be too intense for some — is that it’s disgusting. The camera cuts between shots of a human body being chopped and a shots of a butcher chopping meat. It feels like a cheap shock tactic.

That said, it’s worth enduring the gore for career performances by Massey and Dobriyal. This will likely be the most vile character Massey ever plays, and he makes Prem as intriguing as he is loathsome. Dobriyal shines as a character who is flawed and complicated and up against a system that makes it hard for him to be his best self. His performance is outstanding.

Sector 36 is not an easy film to watch, not just because of the crimes that inspired it but because of what it reveals about the system that allowed them to happen in the first place (and that still exists). As grim as the movie is, the only way to imagine a better world is to really examine what’s wrong with the one we have now.

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Movie Review: Good Luck Jerry (2022)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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The vibe of director Siddharth Sen’s debut feature Good Luck Jerry feels like a toned-down Ludo or Looop Lapeta. But trendy aesthetics can’t compensate for a disorganized screenplay and a lack of character development.

Janhvi Kapoor lends her undeniable charisma to Jerry Kumari, a young woman willing to do whatever it takes to provide for her family after her father’s death. Jerry’s mom Sharbati (Mita Vashisht) isn’t happy about her daughter’s job at a massage parlor, but the family needs the money, especially while Jerry’s younger sister Cherry (Samta Sudiksha) finishes school.

Their financial situation gets worse when Sharbati is diagnosed with lung cancer. Unable to get a loan for Sharbati’s treatment, Jerry uses a serendipitous connection to put a risky scheme into action.

While shopping at a market with Cherry, Jerry is forced by a neck-brace-wearing gangster named Timmy (Jaswant Singh Dalal) to recover a packet of drugs hidden in the men’s restroom. There are police all over the market, but they won’t suspect a young woman of carrying drugs. Jerry succeeds, and Timmy lets the sisters go. The next day, Jerry finds Timmy and convinces him to hire her as a drug runner on a permanent basis.

The new gig earns Jerry more than enough money, but it earns her enemies among the drug dealers as well. Timmy’s boss sets her up to fail with a job that’s too big to pull off — at least not without the help of her family.

In keeping with the colorful dark comedy style of movies like Ludo and Looop Lapeta, Good Luck Jerry‘s world is populated by weirdos. Jerry has to fend off romantic overtures from 40-something wannabe rapper Rinku (Deepak Dobriyal), and Cherry has her own suitor who hounds her while dressed in a groom’s attire. The criminals she meets are quirky, though not as memorable as Pankaj Tripathi’s neck-brace-wearing gangster Sattu from Ludo.

If anything, Good Luck Jerry seems like a watered-down version of other films in the same genre. It’s not as visually interesting, the characters are forgettable, and the comedy isn’t edgy enough. Also, Jerry’s final scheme seems overly complex, and the movie makes no attempt to explain how she, her mom, and her sister were able to pull it off.

Even though it’s based on the Tamil film Kolamaavu Kokila, the screenplay feels like an early draft. Jerry doesn’t grow at all; she begins and ends the movie as a woman who will do anything for her family. Sheer volume of characters — and the inflated runtime that comes with them — is treated as more important than fewer, more impactful ones. Dobriyal’s Rinku suffers particularly from this. He and Jerry don’t have much of a relationship, so including him in a climactic shootout doesn’t actually raise the stakes for Jerry. He just takes up space and screentime.

Kapoor, Sudiksha, and Vashisht share a delightful rapport and make a really cute family. Good Luck Jerry needed more of them and less of everybody else.

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Movie Review: Hindi Medium (2017)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Hindi Medium strikes a perfect balance between the academic and the emotional, humorously illustrating how the class system impacts education.

While the title refers to the language of instruction — Hindi versus English — the film’s lessons translate internationally. The story is as relevant to America as it is to India, so audiences worldwide can easily connect with the material.

Raj (Irrfan Khan) and Mita Batra (Saba Qamar) own a successful bridal store in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk neighborhood. Though they have plenty of money, overprotective Mita worries that their middle-class status will limit future opportunities for their preschool-aged daughter, Pia (cute Dishita Sehgal). Mita convinces her reluctant husband to move to a fancier neighborhood, hoping that will help Pia gain entrance to one of the city’s prestigious elementary schools.

While the family has the money to afford their lifestyle upgrade, they lack the cultural and social capital to take advantage of it. Raj’s local tastes in music and food embarrass Mita in front of the Continental types she wants to befriend. Kids ignore Pia because she’s not English-fluent. When the Batras ask the few influential people they do know for help, they’re told that personal recommendations are taboo among this set. Bribery? Don’t even think about it.

There are myriad codes and status signifiers that Raj and Mitra don’t know about and have no hope of mastering, even with the help of a professional school-placement coach (Tillotama Shome). On top of that is an absurd layer of bureaucracy instituted by the schools simply because they can.

The most damning indictment of the class system is when the coach shares with them a common placement interview question for parents: “How will you introduce the concept of poverty to your child?” The children at these elite schools are so privileged and sheltered that they’ve never encountered a poor person, even in a city as crowded as Delhi.

The poor people from a nearby neighborhood already know that the system is rigged against anyone not from the upper crust, something Raj and Mita gradually realize for themselves. The couple finds a loophole when they learn that twenty-five percent of the spots at the elite schools are reserved for economically underprivileged students, who compete for spots via a lottery. The Batras decide to pose as poor temporarily in order to win one of the lottery spots, shifting house once again.

Writer-director Saket Chaudhary depicts the Batra’s behavior as reprehensible, but almost logical, using humor to ensure that the audience never loses affection for the characters. The Batra’s economic and social standing puts them in a uniquely desperate situation, especially within India where job inheritance within families is common. They’re successful enough to envision a broader future for their daughter beyond the walls of a Chandi Chowk bridal boutique, but doing so means breaking out of entrenched class hierarchy.

Chaudhary deserves kudos for the way he illustrates complex ideas like class and social capital, but particularly so for how he explains the importance of public schools — an ideal that mainstream American conservatives and liberals alike have forgotten, thanks to intense marketing by the for-profit charter school industry. The head of the local government school explains to the Batras that, when middle- and upper-class families put their children in private schools, it deprives the public schools of resources.

The director also makes an important point about poverty through the character of Shyam (Deepak Dobriyal), a kind neighbor who helps the Batras adjust to their newly “poor” status. “Living in poverty is an art,” he explains, as he and his wife Tulsi (Swati Das) teach Raj and Mita a whole new set of social skills appropriate for their diminished standing. Shyam insists that the poor don’t want charity, they want their rights. Just using the word “rights” scoffs at the idea that “opportunity” is enough.

Hindi Medium falls prey to some of the pitfalls of the Bollywood “issue movie” formula. There’s an awkwardly placed song number that interrupts the build-up to the climax, which is Raj giving a speech that no one has any reason to listen to. Chaudhary tries to invert the cliché with a twist on the requisite audience “slow clap,” but that’s trying to have it both ways.

Thanks to his immense talent, Khan comes out of this speech unscathed, the movie cementing his status as the thinking-person’s leading man of choice. Qamar handles Mita’s complexities beautifully, making even her most maddening qualities understandable. Yet another thing director Chaudhary does well is writing every character with their own goals and motivations. Having accomplished performers like Dobriyal and Amrita Singh (as the prep school principal) in supporting roles certainly helps.

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Movie Review: Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015)

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PremRatanDhanPayo2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Devoted Salman Khan fans have expectations of movies starring their Bhai, and surely Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (“Received a Treasure Called Love“) fulfills their expectations. For moviegoers who aren’t hardcore Salman fans, the film seems too familiar.

Don’t get me wrong, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (PRDP, henceforth) is a fine enough film. It lives up to its billing as a spectacle, with colorful dance numbers and magnificent sets. The story is full of teary-eyed reunions and blossoming romance.

But this all feels like something we’ve seen before, and that’s coming from someone who hasn’t seen any of Salman’s three previous collaborations with writer-director Sooraj Barjatya. Salman plays the same character he always plays these days, no matter if he’s starring in an action flick or a romantic comedy.

Prem (Salman) is a supremely righteous devotee who narrates religious plays. His best friend, Kanhaiya (Deepak Dobriyal), is an actor who dresses in drag to perform the lead female roles in the plays. At Prem’s insistence, they donate all of the money they earn to a charity run by the beautiful Princess Maithili (Sonam Kapoor).

On their way to meet the princess in person for the first time, the guys are intercepted by representatives of the princess’s betrothed, Prince Vijay (also Salman). Prem looks exactly like the prince, who is presently comatose following an attempt on his life by his scheming younger brother, Ajay (Neil Nitin Mukesh). Vijay’s right-hand man, Deewan Saheb (Anupam Kher), convinces Prem to temporarily pose as the prince, giving Prem the perfect opportunity to spend time with the princess.

While posing as the prince, innocent Prem comes to learn that Vijay is kind of a jerk. Complicated family dynamics — Vijay is his father’s firstborn, Ajay was born to their father’s second wife — have strained the relationship between the brothers. Their younger half-sisters — Chandrika (Swara Bhaskar) and Radhika (Aashika Bhatia) — by their father’s mistress have turned their back on the family completely.

Worst of all, from Prem’s perspective, is that Vijay is mean to Maithili. The royal couple argues all the time, and Vijay once tried to get fresh with Maithili (a big no-no to Prem, who doesn’t even approve of kissing before marriage).

Prem takes his opportunity as Vijay to try to heal the relationship between the siblings and to make things right with Maithili. If he can’t have her himself, at least he can lay the foundation for a happy marriage to Vijay. Prem asks her to list all of Vijay’s faults, which she does in song form. Unfortunately for international fans, the song lyrics in PRDP are not subtitled.

As one would expect, Salman is almost always the focus of attention. This myopia means that the villainous machinations against Vijay take place primarily offscreen. The revelation of who was plotting what and why is abrupt and confusing.

If you’re going to cast Neil Nitin Mukesh as the villain, use him. Don’t give him fewer than thirty minutes of total screentime, especially in a movie that’s nearly three hours long.

Same goes for Deepak Dobriyal, whose character is sidelined once they get to Vijay’s palace. Dobriyal is one of those actors who has my attention whether he’s the focus of the scene or not. Again, if you’re going to cast him, use him.

Prem describes his relationship with Kanhaiya thusly: “You’re my compulsory companion.” That’s a good description of any character who plays sidekick to Salman. Salman’s characters are often written as being unconcerned by money, which means that it falls to his “compulsory companions” to pay for everything Salman’s characters buy. Since Salman’s characters are usually supposed to embody moral purity, why are they always mooches?

PRDP delivers a bunch of songs, many of which are lavish spectacles. Sonam is pretty, and Salman is heroic. Things proceed pretty much as expected. A happy ending is all but guaranteed.

I don’t know that that’s enough to make PRDP a must-see movie for its own sake. For a holiday weekend outing with family and friends, it’s reasonably entertaining (although the lengthy runtime is a challenge, especially if your theater doesn’t have an intermission break). But is it unique? Is it memorable? I’m not so sure.

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Movie Review: Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015)

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tanu-weds-manu-returns-poster2 Stars (out of 4)

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Tanu Weds Manu Returns is the feel-bad romantic comedy of the year. Lighthearted moments are undercut by a cynicism about the institution of marriage that leaves one feeling melancholy at best, depressed at worst.

2011’s Tanu Weds Manu was a conventional romcom about a pair of opposites: wild-child Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) and steadfast Manu (R. Madhavan). Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR, henceforth) picks up after the first four years of their miserable marriage.

Tanu is so desperate to get out of her marriage that she has Manu committed to a London mental institution. She later feels bad, calling Manu’s friend Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal) to rescue her husband while she flies back to India.

The couple wind up at their respective family homes in different cities (the geography in TWMR is confusing for international audiences). Tanu flirts with her parents’ tenant, Chintu (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), and unwisely reconnects with her short-tempered ex-boyfriend, Raja (Jimmy Shergill). Manu notices a college athlete who is the spitting image of Tanu, only with a pixie cut. He stalks Kusum (also Ranaut) until she relents, and they start dating.

Manu falling for his wife’s younger lookalike is a cute story setup, but it gets creepier the more serious the relationship becomes. Pappi warns that the new relationship is a bad idea — especially since it begins before Tanu and Manu are officially divorced — but he doesn’t call Manu’s obsession what it is: weird.

It hard to know who to root for in this movie. Tanu and Manu are both incredible jerks to each other. Tanu is arrogant and lacks empathy. Manu is selfish but wishy-washy. He doesn’t even possess enough will to make his climactic decision on his own, without prompting.

Worse, TWMR makes the characters’ circumstances so dire that its impossible to resolve the story in a satisfying way. There are really only a handful of things that one spouse could say to the other that would permanently destroy their marriage. When Tanu is at her most pitiable, Manu says one of those things to her. It’s crushing to watch.

Director Anand L. Rai and writer Himanshu Sharma give themselves only two possible outcomes: either Tanu and Manu get back together, or Manu weds Kusum and says good-bye to Tanu forever. Neither option feels good, and both are bad for Kusum.

Kusum is the movie’s redeeming element. She’s an independent tomboy, but she’s also sweet and honest. She’s reluctant to get romantically involved with anyone because, if the relationship negatively affects her athletics, it will make it that much harder for other girls from her village to get scholarships in the future. That Manu pursues her anyway is a sign of his selfishness.

Ranuat’s acting abilities are widely acclaimed, and it’s fun to see her pull off two very different roles in the same movie with such ease. Dobriyal is also entertainingly twitchy as Pappi. Manu’s not much of character as it is, and Madhavan doesn’t add much.

In addition to an unsatisfying story, international audiences will be hampered by poorly translated subtitles. Minor spelling errors — such as writing “apologies” instead of “apologize” — hint at greater problems in translating the humor from Hindi to English. The crowd of mostly native Hindi speakers at my showing laughed uproariously to lines that, in English, read as utilitarian.

Watch Tanu Weds Manu Returns for Kangana Ranaut. Just don’t expect to have a lot of fun while doing it.

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Retro Review: Omkara (2006)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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There’s something compelling about director Vishal Bhardwaj’s movies: the dark atmosphere, the impending sense of doom, the heroes who are just barely heroic. I just wish I understood Hindi well enough to fully appreciate them.

More accurately, I’d need to understand Hindi and a handful of colloquialisms from Uttar Pradesh, where Bhardwaj grew up. A knowledge of U.P. politics and the associated gangster culture would also be useful. My cultural and linguistic deficiencies hampered my enjoyment of the first Bhardwaj film I watched, 2009’s Kaminey.

Cultural differences troubled me less in Bhardwaj’s 2006 movie Omkara, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello. Prior familiarity with the story certainly helped, as did an English-language book that was written about the movie’s development.

The book — Stephen Alter’s Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief — is essential for appreciating the film’s dialogue. English subtitles are often translated in a way that compromises the subtleties of the original words. Alter, who speaks Hindi, explains the true meaning of the words and gives context for the dialogue, making sense of the movie’s otherwise confusing opening scene.

According to the scene’s subtitles, Langda (Iago in Shakespeare’s play) discusses with Rajju (Roderigo) the difference between a “fool” and a “moron.” The two words are used somewhat interchangeably in American English, so the conversation seems odd and not very insightful.

Alter explains that the Hindi words translate more accurately to “fool” and “fucking idiot.” The scene — and the message Langda is conveying to Rajju — makes more sense with the uncensored translation; it ends with Landga explaining that, while they were talking, Rajju’s fiancee, Dolly (Desdemona), ran off with Omkara (Othello). Rajju realizes too late that he’s not a mere fool, but a fucking idiot.

The rest of the story follows the original, even though the setting has changed. Instead of a soldier in the Venetian army, Omkara is a gangster working in the service of a U.P. politician. The action takes place in the modern-day, as evidenced by the fact that the gangsters carry cell phones. Yet the town at the center of events is small and rural, evoking the story’s timeless quality.

Omkara (Ajay Devgan) and Dolly (Kareena Kapoor) are happy together, even though she’s defied her father to be with the illegitimate son of a village leader and his servant. During the course of their wedding planning, Omkara is promoted to a political position. When picking his successor as gang leader, he defies expectations and chooses Kesu (Vivek Oberoi) — a college-educated city kid — over his childhood friend, Langda (Saif Ali Khan).

Langda commences an attack on Kesu’s character, subtly trying to convince Omkara that Kesu is having an affair with Dolly. He’s aided by Dolly’s spurned suitor, Rajju (Deepak Dobriyal). Langda’s wife, Indu (Konkona Sen Sharma), inadvertently gives him the piece of physical evidence to validate his lie, and the tragedy unfolds.

The acting in Omkara is as nuanced as Langda’s machinations. Dolly and Kesu are youthful, charming, and utterly bewildered by Omkara’s suspicion. Rajju is twitchy and eager to reclaim his stolen bride. Omkara’s authoritative facade only breaks in front of Dolly, who coaxes smiles out of him with a glance.

Saif Ali Khan’s Langda walks a thin line. He’s vengeful, but not without cause; devious, but not totally malicious. His only interest is ousting Kesu from the position he wants. However, he fails to consider the toll this will take on Dolly and, by extension, Omkara, his benefactor.

Konkona Sen Sharma’s Indu is the film’s most relatable character. She’s caring, funny and smart enough to figure out that something is wrong. She probably could’ve solved the problems between Dolly, Kesu and Omkara, if only her husband weren’t secretly working against her.

Another highlight of Omkara is the music, especially the sexy dance tune “Beedi.” Bhardwaj got his start in Bollywood as a composer, and the music he’s written for Omkara sets the mood perfectly.

It’s hard to recommend a movie that requires further reading to really understand, but Omkara is worth it. The acting, atmosphere and music are of such high quality that American film fans should just enjoy the ride, knowing that Stephen Alter’s book will clear up some of the confusion. Vishal Bhardwaj is a director of such talent that it would be a shame to overlook his work because of a few cultural differences.