Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Excited about Omkara

The next movie I am really excited about watching is Vishal Bhardwaj's adaptation of the Shakespeare's Othello called Omkara. After watching Maqbool, I was convinced Bhardwaj does a great job with the adaptations. Irfan Khan and Tabu with Pankaj Kapur made a stellar star cast to bring the deception and treachary of Macbeth right to hindi cinema. Next comes Omakara which is set under the polictical backdrop of UP which seems so appropriate for Othello. Ajay Devgan is Othello, Kareena Kapoor is Desdemona, Saif Ali Khan is Iago, Konkona Sen Sharma is Emilia, Vivek Oberoi is Cassio and Bipasha Basu is the courtesan. It will be interesting to see how Saif does as a schemeing manipulator. This sounds totally different than what he has done so far. This character allows more shades of gray. The only part of the star cast that bothers me is Vivek Oberoi as Cassio. After Company he has not proven himself in a really good role, so there is a question mark on his casting. Though he might bring a certain level of guilability and naiveness to the character of Cassio. The trailer looks really good. I am waiting for its soundtrack to come out. Ajay Devgan has a great intensity in him as an actor which translates well to roles that command authority.