Kaante - Reservoir Dogs Mega Review | Critique

Rating: Reservoir Dogs - 4 Stars; Kaante – 3 Stars

The film that launched career of much loved director Quentin Tarantino, 'Reservoir Dogs' is an evergreen cult film. It is a heist movie, but with a difference.

There is no Heist shown in the movie. The movie is set on events after the Heist. Partly, because of budget constraint and partly by design, so that film remains about what happens after the robbery.

Unofficial Hindi remake came in the shape of ‘Kaante’. It was released after multiple delays in release date. (It probably became only delayed film to get such success). Spiced with songs, loads of the choicest curse words and surprise package in the form of Mahesh Manjrekar’s superb debut as an actor, it worked big time for Indian Audience. In fact, it was probably the biggest hit of the year.

Considering the fact that Hindi movies have a longer running time they incorporated Heist and back stories of almost all characters as opposed to Reservoir Dogs. They played to the gallery whenever possible, thus taking out many shocking scenes from the original such as Torture scene of the Kidnapped Police Officer; it had a scene where thugs in kill of an arms supplier of Kashmir, silly if you ask me but it clicked.
 

At time of release of Kaante there were voices of concern from Hollywood about it being copy of Reservoir Dogs, but if you study Kaante closely, it is a loving remake of Reservoir Dogs.

 Moreover, the original parts of Kaante were actually good. Many twists of original were improvised and are not blind copy paste of ‘RD’ (Ok many have been taken of ‘Unusual Suspects’). In fact, detailed back stories each character in Kaante had, was praised by Tarantino himself.

In fact, for many Indian audiences (including me), Kaante was first introduction to Reservoir Dogs and thus to Master Tarantino himself. What else can you ask of a remake?

Written by- ‘Ali Naqvi’.