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Friday, April 26, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD GANGS OF WASSEYPUR - PART 2
EDITOR'S PICK
`Gangs
Of Wasseypur - Part 2` - more fast-paced, furious violence (IANS Movie Review)
Rating: ****
If you try to count the numbers of bullets that are fired at unsuspecting
victims in the ferociously violent world inhabited by Anurag Kashyap`s
trigger-happy goons, you might end up cross-eyed. Caught in the crossfire of
vendetta and redemption, the characters of Gangs of Wasseypur - Part
2 are so on-the-edge, they don`t fear the abyss that awaits them at the
end of their vengeful voyage.
In any case, no one in Kashyap`s god-forsaken kingdom takes cops seriously, not
even the cops themselves. There`s a typically wry Kashyap joke just before
interval when the raging protagonist Faizal (or `Faijal`, as everyone including
his sexy wife calls him), carries his kid-brother`s corpse home. Cops stop
Faizal and politely ask him to accompany them to the police station.
Don`t you see I`m taking my brother home, Faizal bellows.
We understand, squeaks a khaki-clad gentleman. Why don`t you
hand over the body to us and come with us?
This, if you are familiar with the language of commercial Hindi cinema, is in
character with the image of the filmy police force.
It always arrives late. Or untimely. Kashyap crams in-house jokes into every
nook and cranny of this diligently-constructed breathtaking ode to the culture
of street violence. The gang wars are so real that they are unreal. Does that
make sense? It had better! That so-real-that-it`s-unreal tempestuous twilight
zone is where Kashyap`s film belongs.
The violence of the politically corroded north Indian town (Wasseypur, or what
you will) is exaggerated to a point of utter outrageousness. In Kashyap`s
version of the Wild West, you could get killed on the spot for anything, for
asking the time or raping your neighbour`s sister. The price for any crime,
petty or grave, is the same.
The ceaseless shower of bullets gets a hand-up on the visceral soundtrack from
Sneha Khanwalkar`s excruciatingly evocative folk songs of Bihar (some of which
are used in two versions, ironical or poignant, but always intensely definitive)
and with excellent use of the puerile film songs of the 1980s, which used to be
out on the T-Series label back then when music piracy was as rampant as
political hooliganism.
Even when the epic narration moves into the 2000 millennium, the characters are
stuck in the 1980s. A whole thesis can be written on the interesting caller
tunes from the 1980s and 1990s used by the characters in their mobile phone. And
yes, there is Yashpal Sharma, the resident stage singer of Wasseypur crooning a
1980s song for every occasion.
While the funeral of two of the key characters is on Yashpal`s earnest attempt
at musical expression, soars into Yaad teri aayegi mujhko bada sataayegi
and Teri meherbaniyan tracks, they seem to unintentionally mock the
solemnity of the occasion. The latter was actually sung in the film at the death
of a canine.
The ceaseless violence is quite often savagely funny. The series of
miscommunication and misinformation among the assassins when Sultan Qureshi (Pankaj
Tripathi) is to be gunned down in a crowded market, is straight out of
comic-action films from the 1980s.
When Kashyap is not paying tongue-in-cheek tributes to an era from Hindi cinema
that seems to repeatedly define the lives of the film`s characters, he is busy
taking digs at his own brilliantly crafted homage to gangsterism.
In one sequence, an assassin asks his intended victim the address on a visiting
card.
No, this is Dhanbad. The address you want is in Varanasi, says the
helpful man before he`s gunned down in the crowded bazaar.
For the record, the Gangs Of Wasseypur marathon is located in the
Dhanbad belt, but had to be shot in Varanasi.
There are funny scenes of violence, tragic scenes of violence and tragi-comic
scenes of violence. But violence, let us reiterate, is a constant in the lives
of the characters as they stumble, fall, attack, kill or get killed in this
blood-soaked bullet-ridden saga of gangsterism which makes director Francis Ford
Coppola`s Sicily look like a holiday resort.
More fast-paced, furious, frenzied and frenetic than the first part, Gangs
Of Wasseypur - Part 2 confidently occupies that semi-feverish space where
dream, nightmare and reality play a savage hide and seek with your
sensibilities. The performances are tactile and dramatic.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the ganja-zonked protagonist delivers the deadliest
performance in Kashyap`s gang as the most swaggering mercurial gangster on this
side of James Caan in The Godfather. Richa Chadda as his mother
portrays the simmering intensity of a passion whose flames won`t die down with
old age. During a family wedding when Chadda, while singing a wedding song
breaks down and then regains her composure, she proves she`s no ordinary
actress.
We are in the midst of some extraordinary talent here. Let`s not undermine Huma
Qureshi`s saucy turn as the love of Nawazuddin`s constantly-endangered life,
just because she`s hot and glamorous. Huma scorches up the screen with her
casual vibrancy.
There are as many remarkable actors in this film as there are corpses scattered
with scary casualness all across the lengthy saga. Mention must be made of young
Aditya Kumar as Faizal`s kid-brother Perpendicular, who uses razor blades for
everything except shaving, and Zeishan Quadri (the absolutely amazing co-writer
of this saga) as Definite, Faizal`s half-brother. He looks ordinary. He is
dangerous.
Interesting parallels are drawn in the relationship between the half-brothers
Faizal and Definite in this film and Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor playing
half-brothers in Yash Chopra`s Trishul.
These are filmy people who choose to replace the ketchup in the action films of
the 1980s with real blood. But their emotional ties seem to hinge precariously
on the logistics of commercial mainstream cinema.
At the end of the first Wasseypur whammer, Manoj Bajpayee`s
character was showered with bullets. At the end of the second and concluding
part of the blood-fest, Nawazuddin Siddiqui is gunned down mercilessly by the
people whom he depends on.
When you live by the gun, you die by the gun. Unless Anurag Kashyap decides to
bring you back to life. Then you are in serious trouble.
Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui says he feels he is presently the highest paid actor in Bollywood in terms of acting.Read More
Bollywood is quite heady: Huma QureshiActress Huma Qureshi says Bollywood is "quite heady" and it is very difficult to brace up for the journey in the industry.Read More
Wasseypur is no more the town that was once consumed by the raging war between Sardar Khan and Ramadhir Singh. It has spawned a new generation of money squandering lobbyists, turning into foolhardy gangs overnight. With illegal profiteering through scrap trade auctions over the Internet, corrupt government officials, election rigging and hooliganism, the town got murkier. Everyone wanted alliance with the most powerful man of Wasseypur, Faizal Khan. His sole ambition however, is to annihilate Ramadhir Singh, the man with the grand scheme. Gangs of Wasseypur-Part 2 is a fitting conclusion to this story of vengeance, which by now, not just the family but also this town has come to inherit.
