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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 25 October 2007

Giving up smoking is more than a drag

NO SMOKING
Directed by Anurag Kashyar
Certificate 15

IF you’re addicted to the dreaded weed, there is no need to book into Smokers Anonymous. Just grab a seat at the next showing of this Bollywood saga, and you are likely to be put off for life. Believe me!
Part allegory, part fantasy, part satire, total nightmare, it’s a roller-coaster ride into hell for a chain-smoking executive known only as “K” (John Abraham).
He’s devilishly handsome, and knows it, staring at himself in his bathroom mirror and enjoying intimate conversations with his reflection while he lights up one fag after another.
“There are more ashtrays than shoes in this place,” bemoans his young wife (Paresh Rawal), before she threatens to walk out on him.
Persuaded to go on a rehab course, he enrols at The Laboratory, which turns out to be a sinister underground Dante’s Inferno beneath a warehouse in the filthy backstreets of Calcutta. There he is given “the treatment” by a thuggish “guru” in a white medical coat.
Backed by a soundtrack of relentless drumming, laced with truly terrifying moments and black humour, here is an extraordinary Bollywood movie that will spread its impact well beyond Asian audiences and into mainstream cinema.

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