Last week I went to see "Traffic Signal" along with my friend Rajesh. Genuinely I wasn't much interested to watch this movie, but since the promos looked promising I though lets check it out. When we entered the cinema hall we found only 5-6 people sitting, though people started coming once movie started rolling, but throughout the movie there was enough space in the theatre so that we can move around to change the seats.
This movie is the last part of Madhur Bhandarkar's trilogy after Page3 and Corporate. Main Cast included Kunal Khemu, Konkana Sen Sharma and Neetu Chandra. If you haven't heard these names don't worry they are not the top stars of Indian Cinema but surely one of the best actors.
This movie is about one of the Traffic Signal in Mumbai City. The two minute stop by a vehicle at this traffic signal becomes the livelihood of many lives living there which includes beggars (kids and adults), eunuchs, prostitues, tricksters and people selling flowers and clothes. These people have to pay "weekly protection fee" (hafta in hindi) to the manager of this area called Silsila (his father named him silsila because he liked the movie by the same name). Silsila's role is played by Kunal Khemu.
Silsila collects weekly hafta and gives to midlevel don Jaffar who reports to big don Haji Bhaijan who reports to the big don (not shown in the movie).
A young girl Rani ( played by Neetu Chandra) comes to Mumbai along with her sister and starts selling clothes there. She also has to start paying the hafta to Silsila, slowly both fall in love with each other.
Boss of Haji Bhaijan gets an assasin order of an honest civil engineer who is not approving the extension of the flyover for a contractor. Unknowinlgy Silsila becomes part of the plot where Haji Bhaijan get the honest engineer killed. Later the residents of traffic signal come to know that the engineer was the person who was against the extension of flyover which eventually will result of removal traffic signal affecting the livelihood of people residing there.
Silsila reports to police that he was the person who was unknowingly involved in the killing of Engineer, he also gives the names of the people involved.
Movie reflects on the people who are still living below poverty line and have to go through so much labor and pain to earn their livings. It also shows how some of the rich people and some corrupt politicians try to bend the rule for their own advantage.
On the scale of 5, I would give 4 to Traffic Signal. Most important of all, this movie was not copied from any of the hollywood movie which has become a trend in Indian cinema.
Hats off to Madhur Bhandarkar for making such a wonderful movie. I would recommend you to watch this movie atleast once.