Bullet, ishq and bhaigiri

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After the opening credits roll to a song that goes “uff” at the thought of zindagi, the first word uttered by Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi is “shit”. And then it’s there again, a few seconds later. A man on a dock somewhere is looking dazed. He is shocked to find blood oozing from his chest. The frame freezes and the name “Arun” appears. Next to Arun (Irrfan Khan) is a lovely girl. She’s saying that she’ll get some help. A voiceover intervenes to tell us that there isn’t much difference between ishq and bullet. Both, it seems, set out to rupture body parts. We begin to guess, to figure stuff.
There’s a lot to figure and keep up with in YSZ. The story telling is non-linear and unfolds through flashbacks. Along the way several interesting characters arrive and depart — most making the story twist, but some just because. YSZ, simply told, is about two men desperately in love and their mission to get their women. The two men — separated by the class of the bad men they work for — don’t know each other, but their paths collide under the most bizarre circumstances, before a happy ending.
Arun lives in Gurgaon and used to work for Mehta (Saurabh Shulka) — collecting, shifting, investing his clients’ illegal money. Mehta wants Arun to return to work, but Arun wants out, with his money. On a business trip to Goa, Arun had met Priti (Chitrangada Singh), a singer and club owner who owed Mehta money. Arun fell in love and tried to help her. We are not sure she needed help. Neither is Mehta. He mutters that when aurat = churail, then aadmi = gobar.
The other man, Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh), is in Tihar jail with his boss Bade (Yashpal Sharma), a Delhi-Haryana don who has fallen out with his political mentor and must now clean tattiyan. Bade worries about Chhote (Prashant Narayanan), his stepbrother in Russia who likes wearing girlie accessories and lolling about as white models sashay towards him in gowns. Chhote is not nice. He is eyeing Bade’s money. But Kuldeep, with cute dimples and dim wit, is very loyal.
We learn through flashback that he is from Chandni Chowk. That’s where he fell in love and married Shanti (Aditi Rao Hydiri). Petite but fierce, Shanti hates what he does and that he is in and out of jail. But in an auto, with Kuldeep’s gun on the auto driver’s head, his other hand cupping his son’s eyes and his lips eating Shanti’s lips, we know he lusts after Shanti. Shanti melts for a bit and then slaps him, always.
Arun, meanwhile, catches Priti making out with a business tycoon’s son who is engaged to be married to a minister daughter, yes, the same minister who Bade…
Satbeer (Sushant Singh), a corrupt cop we met at Tihar, looks out for Kuldeep. A kidnapping plan is hatched — for ransom and Bade’s release – and Kuldeep is put in charge. He gathers half-a-dozen trigger-happy, idiot gangsters. All that can, does go wrong, till two men find love and man with annoying loins takes a hit.

SUDHIR MISHRA’S YSZ has so many turns and tangents that he has to often employ a voiceover and datelines to help us keep pace, with his characters and their stuff. But Mishra is a master of deadly chases, and this romp through Haryana, Delhi and finally to Mumbai is taut and thrilling.
Part of YSZ’s brilliance comes from its unexpected twists and that everybody and everything is not so much revealed as peeled in layers, in good time. But greater than that are the film’s inspired dialogues by Manu Rishi. They are crass, funny and loaded with misogynistic rustic philosophy about women, sex, life and death.
Another count on which YSZ scores high is that all of its small characters are not just very good actors, but have at least one interesting scene or dialogue to establish their credentials. They together bring this world of men with few morals but many guns to life.
In YSZ, everyone abuses everybody, anyone can pull the gun on anyone, and the director takes liberties with the laws of physics and common sense. But all to hysterical effect.
Mishra’s main characters — Arun and Kuldeep — both work for bad men, but are not bad themselves. They are honest, loyal and in love. The film’s emotional core spins around them, though more giddily around Arunoday. Arunoday is spry and smiles easy. He leaps and scales walls like a wolf and kisses real nice.
Irrfan’s charm is, as always, touching and Chitrangada is gorgeous. But Arun’s love for Priti is the brooding sort, less attractive than Arunoday’s grab-and-strip. And it doesn’t help that Aditi Rao Hydiri crackles with life against Chitrangada’s reserved self. Though Mishra gets Chitrangada beaten and harassed and tries to shake some dead cells to life, her acting is very English dinner-theatre style. Affected, dull.