It was only after i watched 'dev d' and 'gulaal' that i felt an inner urge to watch 'Paanch',the movie which never got to see the light of the day despite being in controversy all this while but for all the wrong reasons.The way Anurag showed the inner turmoil of the male protagonists and unconventional portrayal of women in both the aforementioned movies I was pretty much sure that the movie has something different to offer and boy was i right,Bombay never looked so dark and grim as has been shown in the movie right from the opening credits till the end.

Paanch is a story of five youths including a girl in the form of a not-so-well-to-do rock band which goes by the name of 'parasites'.All down and out on their luck they hatch a plan to kidnap one of their friends who is not a part of the band and ask for the ransom from his rich dad.The plan goes awry and so does their fate,it is only after that we get to witness the destructive mentality of today's youth who want to go to any length to get their dreams fulfilled.Band's lead singer and guitarist is Luke played by Kay Kay Menon, a maniac in his own way and a control-freak with megalomaniac aspirations.The scene where Luke says "baap hoon main sabka" says it all.Aggression and frustration takes a whole new meaning when Luke beats his friend to death with an iron rod.joy played by joy is OK but that doesn't bother you much.Abhishek Shrivastav played his own calm self in 'murgi'.the surprise package of the movie is 'pondi and 'shiuli' played by Vijay Maurya and Tejaswani Kolhapure respectively.Paanch takes you to those dark corners of human psyche where a normal being has least likely to have visited before.Dark,disturbing,destructive,grim and real are the five words to describe Paanch in the best way.A must watch.

It is always going to be a challenge to take a classic novel and turn it into be a movie that will satisfy everyone, especially when the story is being changed and adapted to fit a modern setting. If what you want to find from this movie is an exact translation of the book you will be unimpressed.

I personally loved this movie, it is completely stylish thanks to a brilliant soundtrack and the gorgeous leads Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow (who is cast perfectly as the beautiful ice queen). They are helped along by a strong supporting cast of Anne Bancroft (wonderfully eccentric as Ms. Nora Dinsmoor), Chris Cooper and Robert DiNero.

The problem, however, is that in trying to fit a story as long and complicated as 'Great expectations' into a 90 minute movie you loose a lot of the development of the characters necessary to identify and have an emotional reaction to them.