Madhur Bhandar's Corporate

Last night my roomie and I decided to catch the last show of Corporate at INOX, Garuda. After a trip down tinsel town in Page 3 Madhur Bhandarkar in his next venture Corporate failed to provoke any though what so ever.

It’s a shame a filmmaker of his caliber, who has always treaded a path less traveled by Bollywood, would give a subject like Corporate such a shoddy treatment.

Corporate is a battlefield of power-hungry people (and sex starved professionals). A world filled with deceit and corrupted minds. Where wealth, fame and success are fought over. And rules don't exist.

CORPORATE tells the story of two leading industrialists in the food sector, led by Vinay Sehgal [Rajat Kapoor], Managing Director of Sehgal Group of Industries and Dharmesh Marwah [Raj Babbar], Managing Director of Marwah International P. Ltd. Powerful, ambitious and relentless. This war also extends to the choice of their women.

While there are many diligent people working for these companies, there is also Nishigandha (I wonder why they made her sound like Ranjnigandha). played by Bipasha Basu, a businesswoman with high aspirations and hunger to move to the top. She in the thick of all the action. The overly caked VP of the Sehgal group of industries is the face on every business magazine in the country. Even the most powerful let their guard down once in a way and she did just that - she falls hopelessly in love with Rithesh (KK Menon), CEO and brother-in-law of Vinay Sehgal. A pretty spineless character who has incurred loses that run in corers for the company.

Nishi steals highly confidential launch details of a mint based soft drinks right from under Marwha's nose and passes it on to Sehgal. He then decides to hasten the launch of their own drink (Just Chill), which was originally scheduled to hit the market a year later, and launch it within 45 days! (Some marketing target)

Shit hits the roof when 10 days before the launch traces of pesticides are found in the water that is used to make the drink. To keep his face in the media Vinay still goes ahead and launches the drink. The drink apparently captures 65% market share within a week of the launch (a feat not yet achieved by either of the Cola giants). The Marwah group gets hold of this scoop and plays the media, who very true to their reputation blow it up!

And from then on its turmoil of love, sex, power and money! And the intelligent Nishi is the pawn in the hands of the Sehgal family, who despite her own personal ethics takes the blame for the mishap and gets the Sehgal family the clean chit.

The movie had several good in- film placements. All the laptops used in films were Lenovo - excellent association, corporates and laptops go brilliantly together. Bisleri bottles were featured in all conference rooms. The power blue outfits of Bipasha are from Allen Solly. There are a few shots of the film inside the shops as well, very clearly indicating smart clothes for smart women. Times Now also has good screen presence - they are the media that covers all breaking news in business. Even a pencil brand should have been featured; every desk featured a pen stand with over 100 pencils neatly arranged. Bips is seen drinking Kingfisher strong - I cant really say strong beer for strong women :)

Madhur's Corporate philosophy in a nutshell

-Men obviously think between their legs (Bipasha says so!).
-With every promotion comes more sex!
-Pimping is a lucrative industry
-A woman with a rather colourful social life is tagged public ltd.
-Media is the biggest dog who mulls over anything and everything that comes its way
-Indians have a very short-lived memory
-PR gets one more than just a good media coverage it gets you into the sack!

Cheers

Dhivya