Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year

Ranbir is terrific and the direction smart. If only they’d ended it a bit earlier.

Harpreet Singh Bedi is at his first job and in no position to question the amorality of the computer company he works for. But he does, and his criticism of unethical business practices is at the heart of this movie. Rocket Singh is a film about the dog-eat-dog world of small- and middle-level proprietor-owned companies and how being part of the rat race actually turns these guys into rats. Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor) swims against the tide, and his middle class upbringing and the values that come with it are in perpetual conflict with the ruthlessness of salesmanship in Mumbai.

Inevitably, the only alternative for HS Bedi is to turn entrepreneur himself. He does this by stealing the clients of the company he works for and using the company’s premises and some of its critical employees to launch his own company, Rocket Sales Corporation. It is not as if Harpreet doesn’t see the irony of adopting unlawful business practices himself, but he makes the point, or perhaps the writer and director make the point, that people make a good corporation, not goods and services alone.

Director Shimit Amin gives us the nuts and bolts of office politics at its most hostile and bitchy. What makes the venom curious is that there is a patronising and communal element to it. Bedi is a Sardar and there seems to be something in the air in Mumbai that isolates him and turns him into the butt of office jibes.

Rarely has a Sikh been played so utterly convincingly as it has in this film—the look, the bearing, the expression, the absent-minded adjustments to his hair and beard, the self-conscious manner in which he enters the room. If you didn’t know Ranbir Kapoor as an actor, you would have never guessed that HS Bedi is not a Sikh.

But the film suffers from an absence of any real crisis points. The narrative has no upward curve and jogs along at a steady pace and for far too long. The point has been made, the performances appreciated, the direction and script applauded, but the movie never seems to end.

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Ajit Duara