As I begin to write this review, I just think that for these
kinds of movies I am in such a dilemma. There are several reasons for me to
feel this way. Firstly it is a movie that has been appreciated extensively by
the West. It is a movie that has got mixed reactions right here in India and
most of my close friends either like the movie or do not understand it. So at
this juncture, it does cross one’s mind that do I play it safe and go with the
review that people want to hear and what is pretty established about its
perceptions, or do I give an honest opinion from my heart. I’m glad to say that
for this one, I am certainly going with the latter to give you a different
perspective and to tell you my experience in it’s entirety.
Anurag Kashyap is known to have mastered the ‘noir’ genre in
Indian Cinema. He has been compared to greats like Tarantino and for good
reason, although his consistency is still far from the people he is compared
to. In the prologue of the movie you can see that he has thanked certain people
to help inspire him to go back to his roots, which in my head is him smoking up
and writing stories, but it also means making cinema purely for cinema and
without any commercial expectations. This Film currently has recovered enough
money to be called a hit, and with the sequel to release(yes, there is a
sequel) in 2 months time, it will ensure that the movie earns way above it’s
investment. But had it been that this movie released 10 years back when ‘Anurag
Kashyap’ wasn’t a brand of filmmaking, this movie would have been down in the
dumps, much like his most brilliant film ever-Black Friday.
But times have changed, audiences have changed and movies
have changed and how! Gangs of Wassepur is a new-gen take on what is actually
the oldest concept in Hindi Cinema-Revenge!!..it does not go all out like
Zanjeer or Agneepath, nor does it go slick like Don, it’s just lazy, laidback
and plays like a backstory actually, which is sort of the thing that I have the
biggest problem with. It has made a movie of 2 hours and 45 minutes to say so
little and is pending it’s conclusion in a sequel which is going to be equally
long, and it’s not kine there is a lot to show really, it’s just that he has
stressed on situations and characters in the movie who might not even have any
consequence to the real story!!...
Too many characters, too many sub-plots, although lend
entertainment to the movie no doubt, but could have been well avoided. Like my
cousin, who I saw the movie with said, ‘Dude, you should smoke up and watch
this movie’ and I agree, coz Anurag himself might have been in a trance-like
state while making this. It’s too self-indulgent to be mainstream cinema and
not like I have a thing against alternate cinema-I liked DevD and loved Black
Friday from the same director, but this just a bit too extreme. I will
certainly watch the sequel when it comes, and I hope all the characters they so
painfully introduced in this film, will have some effect on the outcome of the
story.
I cannot finish this review without mentioning the guy who
holds this movie together, the most underrated actor ever-Manoj Bajpai. Sheer
Genius is what you could call his performance in the film!.In every Frame,
whether the situation is comical, dramatic or even romantic, this guy definitely
delivers the goods and deserves all the accolades that he is getting. I won’t
say too much but I hope he is there in the sequel as well.
Overall, I honestly do not know know whether to recommend you
to watch this movie or not because a lot of my friends like it, and I don’t. I
would suggest you watch Teri Meri Kahaani and let me know how that was ;-)
I’m going with 2.5 out of 5 for Gangs of Wassepur!!
Keep Reeling!!!
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