Monday evening on my way back from the opthal, on an impulse we were browsing music when we came across the DVD of “Barah Aana” – Naseeruddin Shah as one of the lead actors definitely helped our decision to pick it up. We settled to watch the movie post dinner and quiet liked the turns the movie takes. That it had no songs was a big plus. Naseeruddin Shah as usual was superb but so were the other two actors, Arjun Mathur and Vijay Raaz.
Small plot, fast pace, a 97 minute movie – works well for a working day evening watch.
Set in Mumbai, the picture is about a driver (Naseeruddin Shah as Shukla), a Watchman (Vijay Raaz as Yadav) and a waiter (Arjun Mathur as Aman). Shukla is an old man who is dead in government records and has thus lost his property to his brother. Aman is a young man, who has lost his heart to an Italian girl who is a regular in his restaurant. Yadav is a 30 something man with his family in village living in poverty.
The three of them have their share of misfortunes but they continue to live in Mumbai overlooking everything till one day Yadav’s child needs money for hospitalization and he is not given advance by his employers. Shukla gives him some money but his pocket gets picked while he is on his way to send the money home. In a fit of anger he hurts a man and ends up sending the man back to his home for a ransom (thanks to the man’s paranoid father). Thus begins his journey of crime which he thinks is a low risk way to make money. Aman and Shukla object in the beginning but both find their own reasons to join Yadav and the trio start their journey in the world of crime. What happens next and how they emerge is something I am not going to write here.
The movie has its light moments but I must add that this is not really a comedy as many people would believe it to be.