99's credits have been shot slickly, and watching them you settle back into your seat. You expect the movie to be aimed at you, and it is.

Kunal Khemu and Cyrus Broacha are friends who make fake simcards. The movie is set in 1999 when mobile phones were expensive and incoming wasn't free.

They overplay their hand and one of their customers leads the police to them.

As they flee, they steal a Mercedes-Benz, but cannot steer it and crash. The car belongs to Mahesh Manjrekar, a thug and a bookmaker. He tells the boys they must work for him to pay off their debt.

Boman Irani is a gambler in Delhi who thinks luck communicates with him through worldly signals.

His character reveals itself at a conference table in Bombay, when a cricket match is on in the next room. Irani's itching to bet but needs fortune to tell him she's on his side.

He asks her if he should punt.

If, he tells himself, that marker that's rolling across the table doesn't fall, the waiter unmindful of the wire drawn across from the wall doesn't trip, and the colleague who's unconsciously unwrapping the label from a used mineral water bottle does so without the label tearing in two, if all these three things happen, it's an unambiguous 'yes' from fortune.

They do: the marker's caught as it slides off the edge; the waiter steps over the wire; the wrapper comes off clean.
Boman goes to a bookmaker's shop and runs into Mahesh Manjrekar.

He wants to put Rs 4 lakh, on India (in 1999!), but is told that's not a big enough bet. It's Rs 20 lakh or nothing. He gambles, he loses.
Irani is one of Bollywood's two best actors. He's convincing in all he does and has been well cast in 99. He plays the man who must convince the world he has life under control when he's holding on by his fingernails.

Like some gamblers, he believes he can turn it around with his next punt.

That gives him hope, and the courage to take on the disappointment of his wife, who's left him, and the wrath of his creditors. You can see his desperation behind his mask. That makes him a terrific actor.

99's writing has an easy pace and it is lucid. The dialogue is urbane and keeps you focussed on the action.

Vinod Khanna (also a punter) and Boman are talking, when a cricket match about to be played later that day comes up. Does he have a tip, asks Boman. Tips are for waiters, says Khanna, not punters.

Manjrekar sends Khemu and Broacha to Delhi to recover from Irani. Staying in a five-star hotel, on Manjrekar's credit card, Khemu falls in love with the hotel's duty manager, Soha Ali Khan.

Boman works in a currency exchange firm and a client drops off $50,000 to be changed.

Boman is tempted to gamble with the money and hides it in his briefcase. The boys find it on a visit to his office, and take it from him. But it's stolen from them as well and the movie then spins into its long climax. Will the boys get the money back? Will Boman pull his life back together? Will Manjrekar let the boys go? Will Khemu bag Soha?

That's what you should watch the movie for: how all of this falls into place.

99 has some excellent performances.

There's a lovely role by Boman's rather short moneylender, who, having come to collect, takes Boman's phone and has a conversation with Boman's wife.

Mahesh Manjrekar is first rate. It's a wonder his presence in Slumdog wasn't noticed as much as, say, Anil Kapoor's was, because certainly he was better in the movie.

In 99, he tramples underfoot all the actors about him, especially in the first half, when he's up against only Khemu and Broacha.

His scenes as the slightly off-centre and short-tempered thug are delightful.

Vinod Khanna in his short role is effortless. He's put on a lot of weight and his once-rocklike face is now uncle-y soft. His eyes have become slits because of the fat on his cheeks. But he shows us the experience of his 35 years in acting.

If there is a problem with the movie, it is that a star is missing.

Kunal Kemu is lean and muscled, but he doesn't fill the screen. In the scenes he has to himself, there is a space that's vacant.

Soha Ali Khan is not as luminous as she was in Rang De Basanti. She's pleasant as she always is, because of her understated acting, but physically she looks wan.

Go watch 99. It's a good reason to get back into multiplexes again.


Aakar Patel/Hill Road Media