Entertainment
”Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’: Quirky and entertaining (IANS Review, Rating: ***)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Babumoshai Bandookbaaz”; Director: Kushan Nandy; Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Shradha Das, Divya Dutta, Murali Sharma, Sanjay Inamdar and Bhagwan Tiwari; Rating: ***
A tale of karma, Kushan Nandy’s “Babumoshai Bandookbaaz” is a loud, quirkily noir-ish and unflinchingly audacious film that may amuse or annoy you for its silliness, but nevertheless it is fascinating as the plot unravels shrewdly.
It is the story of a mercenary assassin, ‘Babu Bihari’ (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) living in a starkly dystopian society, who began his life in crime at the tender age of ten.
For the want of two bananas, he stoned a man to death and ever since, there has been no looking back. After learning the art of firing a gun in prison, he is the terminator who will never refuse an assignment. His clients are the local politicians who at any given instant want to bump off their rivals.
Babu Bihari falls in love with Fulwa (Bidita Bag), a spunky cobbler and life is hunky dory for him, till he finds competition in his professional life with Banke Bihari (Jatin Goswami) a self-confessed disciple of his.
After their initial squabble, Babu and Banke bond over their new found mutual respect for each other. As they take their daredevilry in their profession seriously, they soon challenge each other over their assignments. And soon, one-upmanship and seriousness about their profession comes to the fore, and their personal life gets entwined and self-realisation dawns on them.
With bloodshed, violence, retro-sound tracks and startling performances by refreshingly fresh faces, the film hooks you on.
Nawazuddin excels as the evil, sardonic, ironic mannered hitman and his idiosyncrasies surface at the appropriate moments making him seem menacing. He is aptly supported by Jatin Goswami who is simply realistic and natural. As Banke Bihari, he efficiently holds his own against Nawazuddin.
The Bengali actress Bidita Bag is raw and rustic. She marks her presence in this film with a flawless performance and her bold scenes. The other actress jostling to be recognised in a small but prominent role is Shardha Das as Banke’s love interest.
The others in the cast include; Divya Dutta as the foul-mouthed, razor-tongued Politician Sumita, Bhagwan Tiwari as the Police Inspector and Anil George as the Politician Dubeyji. They are all natural and sincere in their respective portrayals.
With moderate production values, the film is well-mounted and technically perfect. The writing by Ghalib Asad Bhopali, is extremely passionate, but the foundation of the entire narrative is questionable. The black ants and sugar cubes are used as apt metaphors.
Visually, the film is a very rousing fare even if it does leave numerous, mind-boggling, loose ends and unanswered questions.
The songs, “Kali kali hain subah” and “Chulbuli” are well-picturised and they mesh seamlessly into the narrative.
Overall, the major asset of the film is that it succeeds in maintaining interest and suspense despite obvious foreknowledge of the outcome.
–IANS
troy/rb/vm
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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