So a debutant director finally gets it right in his visual crime tale set in a small, rural, central Indian village. Who knew the formula of success would be to include a few racy scenes to lift Bollywood’s proverbial skirt in the air a la Marilyn Monroe…err, um, Mallika Sherawat.

Okay, so Abhishek Chaubey did not exclusively follow the “sex sells” formula of modern film-making, but he did incorporate a few eyebrow-raising scenes into a qualitative story of humor and realism in India’s rural badlands, all told through the eyes of a “forward” woman and two criminals seeking asylum and safety.

In pushing the envelope on all things comical and sensual, Chaubey’s Ishqiya is quite the entertaining flick, once audiences come to terms with the material presented in the film. With a fair share of risqué scenes and even a kissing sequence, Ishqiya to today’s Bollywood would be like Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up or even Trading Places releasing in 1940s Hollywood – entertaining films of decent quality that could only be released when the industry was ready.

That is not to say Bollywood is not ready for Ishqiya. After all, it is not American Pie or Wild Things in terms of raunchiness and sexuality. The story itself is tight, perfectly set up for a fair share of laugh-out-loud moments laced with a hint of sex and sensuality.

As the story goes, two runaway thieves arrive in the small rural village of Gorakhpur, a caste-divided speck of land in and itself a message of the state of economic development affairs in India.

The two thieves – Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and his nephew Babban (Arshad Warsi) – have double-crossed their mob boss, stealing a large amount of money from him and hoping to hide out in a common friend’s house. However, when they arrive, they find their friend is no more, with the possible hideout home now occupied by his widow, Krishna (Vidya Balan).

A love triangle ensues, with love, lies and deception adding to Babban and Khalujaan’s laundry list of problems to deal with. With issues mounting up, Ishqiya builds up a tense climax complete with unexpected plot twists, all without sacrificing believability of story.

Chaubey presents this comically twisted tale in the best way possible, though he did have the help of Bollywood veteran Vishal Bharadwaj, who co-wrote the film with Sabrina Dhawan.

Collectively, the trio of filmmakers created a movie that is as realistic as it is funny and devious. Throughout the film, it appears as if the story was just about to cross the line before tip-toeing up to its edge and playfully retreating back to normalcy at just the right moment.

Oddly enough, the crassness and raunchiness are in a not-so-overdone manner as to make this film acceptable for Bollywood mass audiences, despite the borderline strong themes presented.

And yes, Ishqiya’s defining moment may very well be the Hollywood-style lip-locking scene where Balan and Warsi engage in a series of smooches with more than a fair share of fondling – by far one of the boldest kissing scenes ever in Bollywood film history.

With that, Balan clearly steals the show with her demur yet sassy rendition of Krishna. Indeed, the attractive Bollywood actress plays a woman who all but defines “lady in the street but freak in the bed.”

Shah and Warsi have solid chemistry as an uncle-nephew crime bandit crew who struggle to deal with a nasty mob boss and an attractively forward woman. Combined with Balan, the trio of actors make Ishqiya one of the most entertaining films of this young year.

Perhaps the only weakness in the film is one found in many Bollywood releases nowadays – a soft lead up to the intermission followed by a convoluted second half, and such is definitely the case in Ishqiya.

Still, the overall plot moves well, and the unpredictable ending – complete with some crazy twists – is not necessarily a bad thing.

In the end, Ishqiya is perhaps the most entertaining film of 2010 so far. It is only a matter of time before its boldness makes it a revolutionary, breakthrough film in the way it will advance Hindi cinema to the proverbial next level.