Corporate (2006)

Sex, love, family, and friends - everything is disposable in the quest for fame, money, and power in the corporate world. The follow-up to the national award-winning Page 3, Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate is an unflinching expos of the seedy underbelly of the Indian business world. Boasting a seamless script and formidable cast comprising Rajat Kapoor and screen siren Bipasha Basu, Corporate is rich with evocative performances amid its stark commentary on modern ethics and money-making. Think Dallas with a decidedly Desi twist.

Vinay Sehgal (Rajat Kapoor), managing director of Sehgal Group of Industries, is engaged in a marketing war with magnate Dharmesh Marwah (Raj Babbar). While Marwah draws on everything from duplicitous deals to divine intervention to supplant his business rival, Sehgal enlists a task force led by career woman Nishigandha Dasgupta (Bipasha Basu) who resorts to unscrupulous measures to trounce the opposition. As the rivalry thickens, so unravels a trail of deceit, betrayal, manipulation, and immorality. It exposes the dubious connections between industrialists, government officials, Bollywood starlets, and religious leaders; those who feed off the downfall of others, and those who fall victim to the machinations of the rich and powerful.

The unglamourous backdrop of consumables manufacture during a soft drinks war is deceptive - with sex, scandal and big bucks at stake, Corporate has it all. Bhandarkar deserves high praise for a well-honed script, excellent casting and for eliciting exemplary performances from every player. Special commendation is reserved for Rajat Kapoor who portrays the mercenary JR-like Sehgal with chilling realism. Eschewing the mantle of the sex siren, meanwhile, Bipasha Basu succeeds in capturing the mixed emotions that come with being an unsuspecting pawn amongst the big players in the corporate world. An otherwise complex plotline is fully compensated for by a well-defined narrative, and further bolstered by poignant interjections from the drivers, post-room boys and working-class staff who exist on the periphery of the corporate world, evidently in a much happier state, observing the goings-on with disdain and disbelief.

"A PROVOCATIVE SOCIAL COMMENTARY"

A provocative social commentary, with all the elements of good filmmaking keenly in evidence, the portrait painted of the corporate world is deeply disturbing. For all its startling realism the film is intensely watchable.

In Hindi without subtitles.