The Dirty Picture Review

While it is a known fact that Milan has a knack of telling a different story every time, what makes his direction special is the fact that he reinvents himself with each of his outings. This means that when he adopts a unique story, he indeed makes it different by peppering it with different characters, different setting, different locations, different costumes and an altogether different style of narration. While there are makers who revel on bringing their own style in each of their outings (nothing wrong with that), Milan almost prides himself on tearing away his own filmmaking manual and writing something new.

A girl (Vidya Balan) arrives out of nowhere, becomes one of the biggest sex symbols in the industry and shares relationship of lust (Naseeruddin Shah), love (Tusshar Kapoor) and hatred (Emraan Hashmi) with three men at different stages in her life. She loves the man who lusts after her, mothers the boy who loves her and ends up charming the very same man who hates her. However at the end of it all, all men are pretty much inconsequential in her life as she lives it on her own terms and ends it with her own free will as well.

Milan gets into a daringly different zone with 'The Dirty Picture'. Right from Vidya's moans to her views around what men want to the scene where she ridicules a middle aged man on his dirty moves to her interaction with a junior artist casting director, Milan announces loud and clear that naughty jokes and on-your-face sexuality would reign here.

Of course the journey that Silk takes has it's own twists and turns, some predictable (yet entertaining) and some shocking. Her first sequence with a superstar (Naseeruddin) in the lounge only goes on establish once again that casting couch is a reality. Prior to that her uninhibited act as an extra dancer is the kind that 'chillar maar' scenes are made of. Around the same time Emraan Hashmi's introduction is superb as well and so is his interaction with his frustrated producer (Rajesh Sharma) who understands that 'masala' films is what audience want.

While 'sex sells' is pretty much the mantra of Milan, Vidya and Ekta Kapoor here, there are other elements that make this 'The Dirty Picture' not so dirty after all. The most euphoric of them all is when for the first time ever Vidya finds herself in the middle of an audience who get into the 'seeti taali' mode as soon as she appears on screen. Her constant 'nok jhok' with Emraan Hashmi never fails to bring on a smile while her first ever interaction with Tusshar leaves an impact as well.

However in the middle of this all, there are a few unwanted sequences that only end up adding to the film's length. The one where Tusshar is teaching Vidya how to drive a car has dialogues that go as 'yahan daaon, le le, de de' and stuff alike, hence turning out to be totally unnecessary. Moreover Emraan's visit to Vidya's home followed by a song (Ishq Sufiyana) calls for a big time edit. In fact it almost seems to be a major add-on in order to cater to Emraan's fans and followers, more so since he is missing in action for a major part of the film's second half.

It is reasons due to above that the second half of the film seems a lot longer than what it really is. Even though the film follows the basic graph of rise and fall of a superstar, the journey downhill could have been better established. Silk's decision to turn producer and the sequences following that seem to be a little abrupt while the impromptu dance number (Honeymoon Ki Raat) doesn't leave the much desired impact. Thankfully the film comes back on track in the last few reels when Silk turns into a total wreck.

Just like it was the case in 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai', it is writer Rajat Arora who makes sure that there is a punch line at the end of practically all the dialogues. This also means that even if one may shrug away the unabashed body display of Vidya, it is impossible to ignore the 'single meaning' dialogues here. No wonder, the film stands no chance whatsoever to make for a family audience viewing.

Naughty and unabashed - These are the two words that pretty much describe the essence of 'The Dirty Picture', a film which indeed goes ahead and pushes the envelope like never before. In fact if there was an award for the 'adult film' of the year, the one and only choice would be this Milan Luthria film that crosses all boundaries when it comes to entertainment for the grown ups. Reason being this has to be the most defining mainstream film that sells soft porn like never before, has a mainstream actress moan 'oohs and aahs' in her very first scene and is sold to the mainstream audience as if it was an unwrapped gift.

Rating: ***1/2 

Watch Here Public Review