Disclaimer: The review is my personal opinion and contains some spoilers. Read it at your discretion.

Corporate stars Bipasha Basu, Kay Kay Menon, Rajat Kapur, Raj Babbar, Vinay Apte, Lilette Dubey, Bharat Dhabolkar, Harsh Chaya and directed by two-time National Award winner and once-upon-a-time Ram Gopal Varma protégé, Madhur Bhandarkar.

On the back of Madhur’s previous movies like Chandni Bar, Satta and Page 3 (excluding his commercial duds like Aan and Trishakti) this movie has quite a bit of expectations around it. Also, the trailers gave the impression of a slick and gripping drama played out in the corporate board rooms. Movies like this have to rely on a taut script, great acting and gripping drama with no time to relax for the viewer. The movie shows the fight for supremacy between rival groups which leads them to abandon all ethics and morals, throw it out of the window. Like a character says “Business is not done with emotion”. All that matters is money and power, nothing else.

Corporate is a story about two rival food majors -- Marwah Group and Sehgal Group headed by Dharmesh Marwah (Raj Babbar) and Vinay Sehgal (Rajat Kapur) respectively – and their fight. The movie starts with election results being announced and the party supported by the Sehgals forming the government at the center. This helps them in securing a tie-up with a big multi-national as also go one-up on the Marwahs.

The state government, headed by a third party, announces divestment of a PSU for which there are multiple bidders. The movie then shows the wheeling and dealings that the contenders do to be the front runner. During all this, Ritesh (Kay Kay Menon) returns from London and joins his brother-in-law’s group (Sehgal) where his lover Nishi (Bipasha) is a top executive. Marwah CEO Parvez Merchant (Sandeep Mehta) is a person who lusts after everyone (including Nishi of course). Parvez’s secretary is actually a corporate spy who keeps passing on information to Nishi. She passes the info that Marwah’s are planning to buy out a competitor. The Sehgals buy out a couple of competitors with the help of their foreign collaborators but the Marwahs buy out the minister in charge of the divestment, Gulabrao (Vinay Apte) and eventually win the bid.

Nishi then comes to know (thru the spy) that Marwah are not going to use the PSU for mineral water production but for a mint-based drink launch. She steals the proposal from Parvez, by using a model after whom his lusts and Sehgals come up with their own plan. After some more drama, Sehgals launch their drink ahead of the Marwahs and capture the market. The twist, before the release they come to know that the drink has more than the prescribed limit of pesticides but Vinay asks the project to go through. At this their CEO Naveen (Harsh Chhaya) resigns but still the product comes out. This news reaches Marwah who uses his clout to bring the issue in the open with the help of media and the helpful minister. To save themselves the Sehgals ask Nishi to take the blame and she takes it to become the scapegoat.

This is Corporate for you.

How many times have you seen such kind of stories? Replace the entrepreneurs and soft drink with zamindars/builders and land of the old and voila it is same old story! The only difference is that it is given a glossy, corporate look with all characters sporting Allen Solly suits and taking about their millions. The movie moves at a decent pace wherein it does not bore you to death.

The culprit here is the script. The movie set out to be novel but ends up as new wine in old bottle. There is nothing new in the movie that you didn’t know and is all too predictable. Me and my friends were trying to guess the next move and were pretty accurate every time! Does say something doesn’t it? Also, too many things are crammed in the story to show all kinds of nexus’s that exist, with the end not being satisfying enough. There is the politician-businessman nexus and the corruption that goes on. There is the businessman-media nexus and the bollywood angle as well. There are too many cinematic liberties taken (I do agree certain number is required). The songs should have been chopped as they are a hindrance to the narrative. There was also no need to take a dig at a particular director by showing a character (Manoj Joshi in a cameo) as coffee-loving, gay movie director.

The conversations between the office assistants as also the ones between the ministers’ bodyguards bring a few chuckles.

Bipasha made statements like “If a man does not have ambition he is a loser if a woman has one she is a b****” while promoting the movie. She also has dialogues to the effect that career oriented women are not looked favorably by the society and all. This made us believe that this is a different movie. But, what does her character do? The character was anything but career oriented. Agreed she plays games to get secrets from competitors but she gives all up for her love. The statements, dialogues and actions of the character don’t go hand in hand. Let us ask ourselves a question here – who in his/her sane mind, being career oriented, would take a fall and accept that all wrongs done are by them to save the company’s reputation, that too so that her lover’s family’s reputation does not get affected? All this after she suddenly talks about ethics and opposes the move (after doing all unethical things herself) and finally finds herself dumped. Wow!

Most of the characters are half-baked.

Bipasha is ok and that is an awesome step for her, considering her previous outings where she ‘acted’. The kind of faces she makes while showing concern or while crying needs to change for her to be taken seriously.

Kay Kay Menon is good in parts but the character is not etched properly and ends up looking like a confused “dhobi ka kutta”

Rajat Kapur as the suave, cold-hearted Vinay Sehgal is very good. So is Raj Babbar as the religious Marwah. Achint Kaur is also ok.

Sandeep Mehta is good as the lusting CEO but his character is cut off mid way. It could have been used to make the movie more interesting. Harsh Chhaya is ok.

Vinay Apte as the scheming minister is fantastic. Lillete Dubey and Bharat Dabolkar are completely wasted.

Minissha Lamba looked pretty and was good in her debut movie Yahaan but here she does not look pretty neither does she get any scope. Totally wasted!

Sameer Dattani has one dialogue in the movie and 3-4 scenes. He is better off acting in Kannada movies where he is somewhat of a success with movies like Monalisa and Amrutha Dhare doing well. Again wasted!

Noted people like writer Javed Akhtar and ad film maker Prahlad Kakkar make special appreances and play themselves. Even that does not make proceedings interesting.

Madhur’s direction lacks the punch of his earlier movies. It says a lot when at the end, the viewer doesn’t feel for the character and is indifferent to her plight. I think the movie won’t be liked by the ‘intelligentsia’ as well.

Overall a disappointing movie which is not worth the admission price. You are better off watching it when it comes on TV and wait for a highly anticipated Omkara or the Pirates of the Caribean sequel releasing later this month.

Rating – 1.5/5