It's not just the ridiculously Technicolor shirts. Hussain's Shardul is a great, complex character, a wealthy dance-bar owner who indulges in petty rivalry and entirely illegal high-risk deals while steadfast to a code of honor and authority.

Sriram Raghavan's super film showcases the exaggerated yet believable role very well, and Hussain takes over the screen whenever he's present, even if he's just scowling in the background -- and he isn't doing much of that.

Shardul is a man of action, not words, yet it is his creepy conversational manner that makes him all the more sinister. In one menacing, giggled line he completely dismisses his wife's role in the world -- doing Titanic jigsaw puzzles while he works hard -- his subsequent smile making the flesh crawl. You know he'd shoot her in an instant. You know he isn't just because she isn't worth the trouble.

Also read: The Best Music of 2007

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