This is the title of a James Lee movie we watched on DVD this week.

It's about small-time gangsters in KL. And I guess it punctures any myth that they lead a glamorous life. Day-to-day existence is hand-to-mouth; its pleasures are basic; and most of the time -- if this film is to be believed -- it's infinitely slow. (And gangsters, it appears, also get ripped off -- what were they doing paying THAT much for THAT apartment?)

The film is also about families, and family-like entities. The older cousin is gradually displaced by the younger cousin he has brought up from the kampung to help with the debt-collection business.

The title is hugely ironic. The line is spoken by the younger cousin, as his former patron, his power now all but exhausted, is about to be beaten up or worse. And I guess it's true: we generally use that line to abrogate responsibility, not to exercise it...

"Call if you need me" could also be the motto of Kapoor and Sons -- Since 1921, our other movie of the week.

This was very much not what we were expecting from a Hindi movie. There was a little singing and dancing, but only a little. And there were intermittent bursts of comedy, most of it centred around the irrepressible grandfather of the family -- the one whose heart attack necessitates the needy call.

But most of the movie revolves around family feuds. And I guess we can all relate to the misunderstandings and betrayals that so often haunt our families, and recognize the casual contempt that we tend to reserve only for our nearest and dearest.

Interestingly, the "perfect" son turns out to be gay, which in his mother's eyes is not so perfect, and takes a bit of getting used to. I was surprised by the theme, but it seems Bollywood is no stranger to gay plotlines, no doubt explored with varying degrees of sensitivity. And although the Kapoor character struggles, he eventually regains his mother's friendship, and appears reasonably happy -- which is never the case in Malaysian movies, where gay life HAS to be depicted as miserable simply to get past the censor.

This was ultimately a sobering movie. Some things come right in the end, but in the coming right, other things have irreparably gone wrong.

I feel I should close with a thoughtful little comment on families. Call if you find one.