A couple of weeks ago, we watched Spike Lee’s 4th movie, ‘Inside Man’. The movie was released earlier this year with reasonably good reviews. Albeit a heist movie, the movie features some of Spike Lee’s trademarks, like the tension and struggle of people from different parts of the NY society and how these tensions affect the main characters. All nice and well, this is a heist movie and it should come with amazing theme music.
It does, but unexpectedly, Spike Lee reached out to ‘Bollywood’: when the movie starts, the song “Chaiyya, Chaiyya” (1 minute fragment, mp3) (from ‘Dil Se’) guides viewers through the streets of New York. I heard that initial reviewers were blown away: Inside Man literally has nothing to do with ‘Dil Se’. Apparently, Spike Lee liked the music so much, he thought it needed it be in there.
That said, a clip from ‘Dil Se’ featuring that song1 can be found on YouTube, and of course, it features the typical Bollywood elements: overzealous dancing and singing, but amazing scenery shot on top of a moving train. No safety harnasses either. Hey, even Michael Jackson can’t beat this!
Update: Someone uploaded the whole intro of the movie of ‘Inside Man’. Judge for yourself.
1 Wikipedia on ‘Chaiyya, chaiyya’