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Do all youngsters who go bad do so because they lack a firm, upstanding, and loving father figure? That seems to be the case with our Lucky Singh. You can sense that Lucky’s father (Paresh Rawal) is up to no good with his aunt, who is not averse to hitting on the teenager Lucky (Manjot Singh), and relations between father and son are strained at best. Always wanting the limelight and more and more, Lucky (now grown up into Abhay Deol) turns to a life of petty thievery that escalates to a full blown habit! Thrown out of the house, he sleeps in cars and and his partner in crime, Bangali (Manu Rishi), introduces him to Gogi Bhai (Paresh Rawal II) who acts as the fence for Lucky’s stolen goods. Lucky is asked to drop the dancer/escort Dolly (Richa Chaddha) home and winds up meeting the sister Sonal (Neetu Chandra) and falling for her.
Gogi Bhai exploits Lucky and when he reacts, he and Bangali are “fed” to the police. Lucky manages to escape and his capers continue unabated. Along the way he meets Dr. Handa (Paresh Rawal III) and his wife (Archana Puran Singh), is exploited yet again and taken for a ride by the duo and his friend Bangali.
On his trail are the special branch police and he is finally caught with all the stuff he stole – this time betrayed by Bangali. Of course he escapes yet again – as we are told by a narrator.
The parallels to Catch me if You Can are palpable – there the boy runs away from home as his father is a crook, and his mother in an adulterous relationship. Eventually he is saved by a father figure who was also the one to catch him.
We see shades of the same in Bunty aur Babli where the young couple go on a crime spree, and are captured and saved by an avuncular policeman.
Dibakar Bannerjee sets us up twice with father figures, indeed nicely manipulates us by having the SAME man play the father figures, but in each instance they betray Lucky just as much or more that his real father did, thus leaving him stranded with no compass and no direction. Even Sonal is unable to shake him from his path of crime! Indeed, by the end she does all but actually take money from his hand. So does Lucky get redemption in the end?
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akshay shah 3 June 2009
05:56:32 pm
Fantastic piece
neelu 3 June 2009
07:38:53 pm
Thanks akshay!
Som 3 June 2009
08:54:26 pm
Agree with your observation on Dibakar’s concept behind Paresh Rawal playing 3 different characters in the same film.Lucky had close acquaintance with each of them, trusted them but none of them cared to value his trust, probably a symbolic of mercenariness and pretense people tend to exhibit in this material world.Lucky was of course corrupt but the mortals around him were even more corrupt than him.
Btw Peter Sellers I guess was the first actor to play 3 different characters in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Delicate Balance of Terror” also known as “Dr. Strangelove.”
neelu 3 June 2009
09:08:58 pm
Som – in doing that Dibakar broke with the usual trend to have a strong father figure who can set the criminal on the right path. But I think for me it messed up the “finish” in the film. If not the “father” figures, then the romantic angle or something should have taken Lucky to the next level – either of higher crime or redemption. By leaving things as is the film was weakened.
neelu 3 June 2009
09:11:23 pm
And even before Peter Sellers, Jerry Lewis played 7 roles in The Family Jewels!
Som 3 June 2009
09:14:49 pm
Yeah he did but the film was released one year after “Dr. Strangelove.” So I am right.
neelu 3 June 2009
09:16:36 pm
You are right – so Jerry was just trying to 8 pack Peter Seller’s effort!
Som 3 June 2009
09:24:50 pm
I would like to quote Jay Arjun Singh here who IMO perfectly interpreted Lucky’s association with Dr Handa and his wife.
“Rawal’s third character, the ingratiating Dr Handa, is very familiar, as is the manner in which his wife (a smooth little performance by Archana Puran Singh) mentions that Lucky closely resembles her US-based brother – “Main to inhe dekh ke emotional ho gayi, bilkul same-to-same Monty hain.” This line doesn’t exist in isolation (which it could well have done, being both funny and authentic in its own right) but paves the way for something else that’s common in certain sections of Indian society: the forced creation of “family” relationships of convenience, which can become a prelude to something more manipulative.”
neelu 3 June 2009
09:29:54 pm
Yes, astutely put. But there is also a discomfort with calling older people by name – hence a meaningless string of deedi, bhaiyya, uncle, aunty ensues. But this is not for any manipulative reason, IMO.
Som 3 June 2009
09:38:23 pm
“But I think for me it messed up the “finish” in the film. If not the “father” figures, then the romantic angle or something should have taken Lucky to the next level – either of higher crime or redemption. By leaving things as is the film was weakened.”
Probably there is no redemption for him.He is still stuck in deprivation and solitude.”Love” was the only thing he hankered all along, something he could never steal.
What I liked the most about “Oye Lucky Lucky Oye” was there were so many layers in the film which made it even more interesting and involving than Dibakar’s debut effort “Khosla Ka Ghosla”.
neelu 3 June 2009
09:45:13 pm
But he did get love from Sonal – although, instead of trying to reform him, she stayed an observer, or even became a participant through her family. What he really needed/wanted was a loving but strong father figure and he never got that.
RAJ 4 June 2009
04:39:16 am
Nice piece Neelu,
I liked OLLO immensly..
Ravi 4 June 2009
07:50:32 am
Nice movie, I am a fan of Abhay Deol movie now a days. Different and entertaining.
Aarohi 7 June 2009
07:14:50 am
My favourite 2008 film. I think ‘leaving things as is’ worked very well for the film although this might have affected the BO performance of the film. Another underrated aspect of OLLO is its soundtrack.