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Saturday, April 20, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD SAHEB, BIWI AUR GANGSTER RETURNS
EDITOR'S PICK
SBAGR
- vivid, vibrant, savagely tragic with gutsy performances (IANS Movie Review)
Rating:
****
In what could be regarded as a sequence of subliminal comic relief, a
little-known actor Rajeev Gupta gives this film, suffused in powerhouse
performances, its best performance as a slimy politician caught watching porn on
his laptop in his office by a goon masquerading as a journalist.
The sequence is hilarious and at the same time sobering. While the
self-important buffoonish politician`s predicament raises laughter, his
hypocrisy also raises issues about a parliamentary crisis that is anything but
funny.
Like God and the Devil, the characters in Tigmanshu Dhulia`s sequel to the
highly acclaimed Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster work in mysterious often
bizarre and inexplicable ways. Each of the main characters in Saheb Biwi
Aur Gangster Returns (SBAGR) is stricken by a self-destructive passion
bordering on an all-consuming neurosis.
Frozen in a feudal mindset these dislocated creatures of an aristocratic
Diaspora struggle to get out of a world that has abandoned them, by trying
desperately to enter the bizarre world of politics. In this process of
straddling two worlds, one in the past and the other in a state of ferocious
flux, Dhulia`s people end up hurling into a dead-end from a height where the
world looks deceptively enticing and inviting.
Torn between desire and self-loathing, the characters populating and copulating
in SBGR are emptied-out by their own ambitions. Like the first film, the second
one end with a shocking death and an ironic twist to the drama of the damned and
the doomed.
Right at the start we meet Irrfan as Raja Bhaiyya, a small town
hoodlum-politician with feudal antecedents who chases a press photographer down
the narrow gullies of a Madhya Pradesh backwater city and thrashes the hell out
of the cowering lensman for cutting his face out of a newspaper report on a
political rally.
Irrfan plays the upstartish outsider with such in-house cockiness, warmth and
humour that we don`t miss Randeep Hooda who seduced the biwi in the
first film.
Mahie Gill as the neglected ravenous biwi again stumbles (literally)
on to a role that gives her enough meat to chew on. She savours and embraces her
character`s immorality, with Soha`s angelic bride-act performing an arresting
counterpoint.
Indeed the sequel to Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster moves far ahead in its
packaging and technical finesse. The politics and dynamics of relationships
trapped in an eerie game of one-upmanship are brought to flickering life in this
scintillating sequel that mischievously secretes alcoves of unexpected
temptations.
Dhulia on an unreserved high after Paan Singh Tomar here achieves a
more intense emotional depth than the first Saheb Biwi...
The plot unfolds like an intricate jigsaw - each puzzle falling into place with
a thunderous impact. The doddering aspirations of the depraved politicians form
the backbone of the supple sequel where the men are often caught with their
pants down...and the women don`t seem to mind it!
Converging on Irrfan`s character, the script clamps down on the mofussil mindset
on politics, woman, power and family values- all these aspects of Indian life
come together in a hurl of hectic machinations.
Dhulia spares us the verbal vulgarity. Admirably the characters trade outrageous
insults without abusing mothers and sisters in the process. At one point when
the bankrupt zamindar Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy) is repulsed by his inebriated
wife`s sexual advances, he tells her, Your seduction is so cheap I feel
like paying for it. But I don`t have the chillar (loose coins) to do so.
The `khanak` of loose coins for the `loose` woman reverberates across this
delicious drama where every character is playing a game with others and self.
Jimmy as the landlord on the skids puts in an exceptionally fine-tuned
performance to offset Mahie`s here-there-everywhere drunken act.
Indeed Mahie pulls out all stops once again to play the kind of slutty
royalty-wife whose cravings are so apparent they shame anger and embarrass even
bystanders, as we witness when in her politician`s cabin a subordinate offers
her spending-money assuring her he would take it back from her
husband.
Dignity is at the lowest ebb and desire at an all-time high as Thakur Aditya
Pratap Singh resolves to remarry. He chooses as his bride the vulnerable and
pretty Ranjana (Soha). Once Ranjana enters the crumbling corrupted palace,
Dhulia`s plot lets the politics of oneup-womanship between the rejected wife and
the new bride take over. You almost wish there was more conflict between Mahie
and Soha`s characters to justify the corkscrew finale.
Though stubbornly economical, Dhulia`s narrative is never short of breath as the
characters move towards a perverse nemesis.
SBAGR has its flaws, oh yes! The raj-neeti of the second-half melts
into a kind of uneasy sexual tension. We don`t know whether to laugh or cry in a
sequence like the one where Mahie, after inviting the cheesy Irrfan character
into a posh hotel room for an afternoon of drunken pleasures, suddenly sobs,
I don`t have any friends.
The characters, in fact, are so savagely tragic that they end up looking comical
in their self-appointed positions of septic ambitions. You really can`t like any
of the people in Dhulia`s world of sex, politics and crime.
Ask them if they care!
SBAGR is a vivid, vibrant, dramatic, savagely tragic and unexpectedly humorous
sequel with gutsy passionate performances. This is not a film you can fall in
love with. Its drama of dreadful disenchantment doesn`t allow you the luxury of
affection.
Directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, Saheb Biwi... is the sequel to 2011
film Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster, which was appreciated for its intense
script, narration and performances.
The part two takes the story forward from where it was left in the original,
which revolved around three characters entangled in a relationship that
culminates in tragedy killing Randeep Hooda`s character, confining Jimmy
Sheirgill`s to a wheelchair and letting Mahie Gill`s character become bindaas
and powerful.
The sequel stars actors Jimmy and Mahie, who will all be seen reprising their
roles from the previous film. They will be joined by Irrfan and Soha Ali Khan in
the cast.
Said to be made on a budget of Rs.7 crore, Saheb Biwi... is
co-produced by Dhulia and Rahul Mittra.
Dhulia candidly admits that his offering has the right amount of sensuality,
which he feels is important to the story.
There is sensuality, but in little measure. I feel that it is effective
only like that. It (film) should have the right amount of sex and passion,
he said.
Actress Mugdha Godse will be seen in an item number for the first time in
Dhulia`s directorial venture.
