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EDITOR'S PICK
Gurgaon': Dark but not compelling enough (Review By Troy Ribeiro, **1/2
)The film opens with a promising, serious sequence that preaches how nature is
violated by man and warns us about its repercussions. But the story that follows
is too feeble to substantiate this initial claim.
Mounted as a noir thriller and embedded with artificial flourish, Shanker
Raman's maiden directorial venture "Gurgaon" is a moody, heinous family drama
based on true incidents.
With female infanticide, greed and sibling jealousy as vile motives, the story
reveals the psychotic behaviour of an estate developer's clan who is based in
one of the most economically developing regions of northern India - Gurgaon.
Property magnet Kehri Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) has an ominous past. In his
endeavour to be prosperous, he visits a soothsayer, who tells him that his
daughter will bring him all the luck he needs. So he adopts an orphan, Preet
(Ragini Khanna) and showers all his attention on her. This has an adverse effect
on his biological son Nikki (Akshay Oberoi), who resorts to vices and substance
abuse.
To prove himself worthy, Nikki proposes various business projects, the latest
being a gym in an upcoming locality. When his proposals fail to impress his
father and he realises that Kehri plans to hand over the development project of
the land to his sister, who has just returned home from the US after studying
architecture, he resorts to illegal methods of raising money for his pet
project.
But luck evades him and he lands up owing a bookie Rs 1 crore. Desperate to ease
his financial woes and raise funds to pay back the bookie and for his dream
project, he hits upon a plan to kidnap his sister Preet, fully aware that his
father will cough-up the ransom amount.
But predictably, his plan goes awry and the chain of events only get murkier.
The plot, with cardboard thin, one-dimensional characters and a sub-standard
screenplay the narrative seems forced to ensure mystery and drama. But, the real
fascination in the film lies in the subtle, under-stated performances of its
cast who speak in a fluent Haryanvi accent.
Akshay Oberoi plays the handsome yet deprived bad boy, Nikki with natural ease.
It is his cold gaze and his coterie of friends that add to his aura.
With her tomboyish demeanour, Ragini Khanna packs quite a punch as Preet.
Pankaj Tripathy as the ever-sozzled Kehri Singh with passive, impenetrable
expression is perfunctorily disturbing but not menacing. He is aptly supported
by Shalini Vatsa as his wife Karma Devi, who exudes a strong screen presence.
She leaves an indelible mark in the minds of the audience.
Aamir Bashir as Kehri's friend and police investigator Bhupinder Hooda has
nothing much to offer and is wasted.
On the technical front, with moderate production values, the film is astutely
crafted. The violence though deadly is not so graphic or stylized as to be
voyeuristic, but the climax is definitely shocking.
While the sound effects and music by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor are
used to great effect to pump up the mood that accompany the stylishly designed
frames captured by Vivek Shah's lensing, the jerky edits mar the viewing
experience.
The last number that accompanies the end-credits is soulful and worth the wait
for the credits to wind up.
Gurgaon': Blood-soaked Shakespearean parable on crime,
redemption (Review By Subhash K. Jha ; Rating: ****)
The gleaming, glittering surfaces of Gurgaon which stands between the violent
hinterland of Haryana and the capital politics of Delhi, renders itself with
ironic radiance to the themes of entrepreneurial greed and violence in cinema.
Atul Sabharwal's "Aurangzeb" was an underrated attempt at understanding the
strife that controls the monstrous affluence of the constantly-evolving region.
Director Shanker Raman's "Gurgaon" gets it right immediately and ineradicably.
There is a sense of immediacy and doom in the storytelling, which coil
themselves around the viewer from the first frame in such a persuasive manner
that we are sucked into the tale, although some of what happens here is done
more for effect than out of an inner conviction.
But the absence of credibility never comes in the way of the storytelling that
achieves an unconditional littoral of pounding impact even when we see the
bullet coming. "Gurgaon" reaches into the darkest interiors of its character's
yearnings and is not afraid to come up with unsavoury home-truths.
Pankaj Tripathy, playing a Brando-esque business tycoon whose legitimate
professional activities barely conceals his inner world of simmering murkiness,
sets the pace for other actors to follow.
Tripathy, who has so far played only economically challenged desperados with a
touch of humour and irony, plunges into his first truly dark role (from the
dhoti to the dressing gown, so to speak), with a vengeful intensity bringing to
the patriarch's part a Hamletian ambition guilt and destruction that never
overwhelm the narrative.
Tripathy's Kehri Singh is a study in unscrupulous self-advancement. He doesn't
hesitate to brutally kill his brother. But is a doting fussing father to his
foreign-returned daughter Preet (played with relative effeteness by Ragini
Khanna).
But it's Akshay oberoi playing the outcast son who steals the thunder lighting
and what-not. It's a big-bang performance, implosive and bursting at the seams
with unspoken bitterness. Oberoi plays the truant son (a cliche in the crime
genre) with much empathy and little compassion. In one sequence, we see him
brutally violate a prostitute in a bath tub. We know what levels of violence
Nikki is cabable of.
Nikki doesn't disappoint.
While Tripathy and Oberoi tower above the rest of the cast in the skyscraping
crime drama, there is no dearth of engrossing performances throughout the
simmering stunning span of the tense storytelling. In fact, one of this
remarkably tactile thriller's USPs is its progressive tumble of interesting
characters.
About 35 to 40 minutes into the film, we meet a young mild-mannered South Indian
rock musician Anand Murthy (Srinivas Sunderrajan).
We don't know at that point of time how intimately Anand will get connected to
the awful crimes that mankind often commits against his own blood. A little
later, we meet a small-time hired killer Jonty (played with brilliant brio by
Yogi Singha). Jonty joins the jamboree of violence like a stranger thumbing a
ride to Hell. Midway in the heaving overtures to create an organic heft in the
narrative, a close relative of the family Bhupi (played with grit and rigour by
Aamir Bashir) shows up in what is known among commercial filmmakers as
"interval-point dhamaka".
Do your business and come back quickly.
Where do these desperate specimens of crime-committing renegades come from?
"Gurgaon" trails the bloodied path with diligent persuasiveness. It doesn't
flinch from uncomfortable family secrets. And when these secrets tumble out in
an unstoppered flow, the narrative sighs in deep languor while the characters
make a mess that they can never hope to clean up.
Till the very end of this violent saga of internecine devastation, we are given
clues and glimpses into minds and hearts that are governed by greed and felled
by opportunism. The editing (Shan Mohamed) gives the narrative the appearance of
a wound-up clenched crisis. The cinematographer Vivek Shah captures the city of
ambition, greed and destruction with a flamboyance that secretes a deep hurt and
wound.
These are characters born to doom. God bless them.
National Award-winning actor Pankaj Tripathi, whose performances in film after film have drawn critical acclaim, says his big dream is to live in the lap of nature -- in a farmhouse where he can indulge in organic farming.Born to a farmer's family and brought up in Bihar, Pankaj told IANS in an interview: "I am really thankful for whatever I have got in the last five years. It is great, really. But I want to see myself somewhere else.""I want to build my farmhouse where I will do organic farming, I want to pet some animals, and some beautiful flowers should be there in the garden. I want to live close to nature, along with my family."Read More
There's always fear of being judged: Shanker RamanShanker Raman, whose directorial debut "Gurgaon" opened earlier this month to rave reviews, says there is always a fear of being judged and misunderstood.Read More