Yes, it is yet another movie about the victimized protagonist succumbing under the pressure of the “system”. But this one is dealt with a touch of humor, dark at times, but funny nevertheless. The flow in the screenplay is gripping. The power flow from the street beggar to the business world - via the traffic signal leader, the mafia, and the politicians – has been shown with great expertise.

Madhur Bhandarkar needs to be applauded for the choice of subject for various reasons. We all see street beggars everyday. Either we choose to ignore them or we choose to feel good about ourselves by throwing a coin or two at them. Either which way, most of us certainly choose to forget them after the 100 odd seconds we spend cursing the red light. Then would we want to spend the 100 odd minutes watching a movie about the life at that traffic light? Huge risk!

The movie reflects what most of us believe to be true. The people at these lights are victims, but they are liars too. They are actors performing live. All of them are part of a huge scam - Right from the child in the arms of a young mother to the almost nude, crazy old man. The director has taken up the challenge of making you empathize with all of them – right from the gay sex worker to the loser drug addict.

By interval time, you are settling down to the idea of having a story-less movie, saying to yourself “oh, I see, this is one of those slice-of-life things”. Then slowly you see the story emerging and very smoothly translating into a compact climax. The ending had a punch with just the right amount of drama and not much ado.

The acting of the main characters is mostly a pleasant surprise. Kunal Khemu says his lines in a monotonously annoying manner. You want to yell out “talk properly, for heaven’s sake”. And suddenly you realize that is exactly what you would say to a person with an “I-own-this-place” attitude, which happens to be the character he plays. And then you warm up towards the character.

Similary, though Neetu Chandra, Konkona Sen Sharma, and Ranvir Shorey (especially his introductory scene) have very small roles to play, not for one line will you feel that they are not the character they are playing. The one thing that did not work though is the make-up of Kunal Khemu and Neeta Chandra, they looked artificially dark.

Due to the number of lives a traffic signal nexus touches (at least 50), there is a long list in the supporting cast. Overall, the supporting cast is average. While some got under the skin of the character (Upendra Limaye) the others delivered their plain dialogues rather unconvincingly (Sudesh Mishra). The dialogues are very clearly not meant to be either profound or dramatic. However, the funny lines do achieve their purpose of getting a good laugh out of you.

Traffic Signal will be added to the list of movies that deal with social issues in a crude yet sensitive manner. It gives you the reality but does not slap it across your face. And it shows you, in a lighter vein, how differently the poorest rank their priorities from the conventional “right”.