2010 film by Parmeet Sethi
Badmaash Company (transl. Naughty Company) is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language crime comedy film written and directed by actor Parmeet Sethi and produced by Aditya Chopra. The film stars Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Vir Das and Meiyang Chang. The film was released on 7 May 2010 under the banner of Yash Raj Films, and was a commercial success at the box office.
ASTPL, an Indian software developer, also released a mobile video game based on the film.[2]
Plot
In 1994 middle-class Bombay, three ordinary youngsters, Karan, Zing and Chandu graduate from college and go for a trip to Bangkok, Thailand, where they meet Bulbul and they start a business together.
Karan falls in love with Bulbul, and tells her that he always wanted to start his own business however his father Sajjan Kapoor wants him to do an MBA first. On the other hand, Bulbul confesses that she wants to be a supermodel, and advises Karan that he does not need a large amount of money to start a business, but a big "idea".
Back in India, Sajjan has a heart attack. Karan's mother Maya pawns her jewelry in order to arrange money for better medical facilities, and an AC room at the hospital as his insurance could only afford a small room with a fan. This leaves Karan heart-broken, and he immediately decides to get rich by any means. He starts his own business venture along with his friends. He comes up with an idea for smuggling branded Reebok shoes into India, without any customs charges. For this, they have to separate the consignment into two-halves, one half with only left shoes in Calcutta and the other half with only right shoes in Madras. At both places, the buyer will refuse to receive the consignment, hence the entire consignment will be confiscated.The confiscated consignment will then be auctioned to which Chandu (in Calcutta) and Karan (in Madras) will buy the entire consignment, posing as scrap dealers. Once they pair the right pair shoes with the left pair shoes, the zero-valued product comes into a full value, which they sell at any price without any customs charges. They name their venture "Friends and Company" and proceed to make a large fortune with it.
When Karan is caught red-handed by Sajjan while putting away the black money, he explains the situation, including the fact that he is doing business with a smuggler. As a result, he is forced to leave the house and starts living with Bulbul and uses her to get contacts and contracts. After the government in India decide to reduce the import duty on foreign goods (including shoes), the friends decide to go to America. They get help from Karan's Uncle Jazz, and do the same business in the US as they did in India, however this time they import leather gloves. Soon, the group becomes excessively rich, and start to live a lavish life. Zing meets Linda, and they begin a relationship but Zing’s alcoholism causes the relationship to deteriorate and Chandu secretly falls in love with Linda. Meanwhile, the police start to suspect Karan and his team, owing to which they change their business. They decide to rent a lavish house for $100,000 by taking a loan from a bank. Afterwards, they sell the house to each other, taking a loan from the same bank, repeating the cycle. Once one of the friends cannot replay the loan, they declare themselves bankrupt and the property gets seized by the bank. However, the company would have already gained $200,000 in profit. As time goes on, Karan becomes too greedy and the group fall apart.
Zing and Chandu get into an argument because Zing abuses Linda. Karan and Zing get into an argument about Zing's excessive drinking. Zing leaves and opens his own bar. Bulbul leaves when she finds out that Karan has married another woman. Chandu marries Linda and quits the company to start a clean video store business alongside her. Alone and heartbroken, Karan visits India and secretly attends a function where Sajjan is being honored for his years of service to his company. Upon seeing this, he realizes his mistake and returns to America, where he is arrested and is jailed for six months. He is bailed out by Bulbul, Zing and Chandu. Bulbul gives up Zing's, Chandu's and her share of profits from what they earned in the company.
Karan starts working with his uncle Jazz. One day, Karan coincidentally meets Bulbul, who is revealed to be pregnant with his child and they both reconcile. At Uncle Jazz's office, Karan finds out that his uncle's entire consignment of imported shirts from Madras has been rejected due to the color of the shirt changing after being washed, causing Jazz company's share fall down to 30%.Karan sees an opportunity and comes up with another idea and patches up with Zing, Chandu and his family to start another venture.
Zing also apologizes to Chandu and says that he is happy that Linda is safe with Chandu. As for Karan, this time, he makes Jazz's buyers believe that his company offers a new kind of shirt in the market, which changes its color every time it's washed, hence somebody gets a new shirt every time it's washed. The buyers order a trial order of 5,000 pieces. Linda, who is one of Michael Jackson’s backstage dancers, promotes the shirt that he wears in one of his concerts.
The public goes crazy over this new shirt, due to which Karan receives another order, this time for a much larger number of shirts. The shares of Jazz's company skyrocket as the public buy many more shirts, hence recovering his Uncle Jazz's loss. Karan, Zing, Chandu, and Bulbul are now partners with Jazz in "Friends and Company", and grow it into a public limited company. Now with his wife, son, friends and having made his father proud, Karan is finally content with his genuine and happy life.
Production
Parmeet Sethi wrote the script for the film with dialogues in only six days. The four main characters are all based on real-life people. Parmeet reveals that he was tired of television and was keen on pursuing film direction.[3] Filming locations for the film included New York, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Bangkok, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
Critical reception
The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it a rating of 3 out of 5, saying; "On the whole, Badmaash Company is a watchable experience for various reasons, the prime reason being it offers solid entertainment, but doesn't insult your intelligence."[4] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the movie 1.5 out of 5 and claimed it to be "outrageously silly".[5] Gaurav Malani of Indiatimes gave the film 3.5 out of 5 saying "Badmaash Company is a good entertainer. Worth a watch!" and praising Shahid Kapoor.[6] Komal Nahta gave the film 2.5 out of 5, praising the performance of Kapoor and called Badmaash Company "an entertainer".[7] Sukanya Verma of rediff gave the film 2 out of 5 stars saying Sethi's directorial debut starts out with cocksure confidence and zing.[8]
Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and said, "Indeed, Badmaash Company does have a bunch of riveting scenes, although the story does follow a very predictable line of crime and punishment/repentance."[9] DNA gave the film 2.5 out of 5 saying, "This company is worth keeping."[10] Anupama Chopra of NDTV called it a "staggeringly tedious film" while Raja Sen of Rediff said, "There's not a single scene in the film that actually works". Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times criticized the film as half-written; he only liked the film until the interval and gave it 2 out of 5.[11] The film received an aggregate rating of 4/10 at ReviewGang.[12]
Box office
The film had a decent opening on its first weekend despite competition from the multi-starrer comedy Housefull. The film made a drop in overseas collections, but it have much effect on its domestic collections. By the end of its first week, the film grossed ₹ 208.4 million. The film collected ₹ 529.8 million[1] at the end of its theatrical run and became a commercial success at the box office.[13]
