GANGS OF WASSEYPUR by
CUTEANGEL 2012/08/13 11:58
Anurag Kashyap shines once again in the concluding part of Gangs of Wasseypur even though the film is a tad too long, writes Raja Sen.
G angs of Wasseypur II plunges straight into action, rendering thefirst part nearly redundant.
A man dies, and revenge is sought. That is strictly all we needto know, the rest falling into placeas it goes along.
Backstories and complicated genealogies are frankly rather extraneous in this bloody, bullet-riddled Anurag Kashyap world, where we choose our allegiances to characters based on the moviestars they idolise and the songs they hum. Who shot first isn't as important as whose shot looked sexier.
And lest that sound like a deterrent, I assure you it isn't. Gangs Of Wasseypur II is a damned sight better than the first part, because a lot of the cumbersome subtext is already out of the way when the impressively visceral khoon-kharaba of the second film begins. Having dispensed with the potatoes, this film's pretty much all meat. And quite a feast it proves to be. [image]
Sure, it is hours and hours of foreplay with an inevitable climax, but when done masterfully, there is much pleasure to be had in gambits and gulcharras, in, well, toying with one's food. The khilwaad before the maar is where Kashyap genuinely shines.
Part of this is because Kashyap, in pulling out all the stops, seems content here to let his madcap characters actually enjoy themselves a great deal, making for a far sillier -- and decidedly more joyous -- cinematic universe.
His badlands have now more puns than guns, and there is much ludicrousness on offer. Everyone's having a blast (often literally) and while these savage characters inexplicably decide, after a while, to hold off on the actual revenge angle of the saga, the digressions are often written,performed and shot with enough ingenuity and cinematic panache for the story not to matter. This one's a ride -- albeit not one for the queasy of stomach or the impatient of bladder.
Manoj Bajpai [ Images ], patriarch of the first film, is gunned down ala Sonny Corleone, his sudden death immediately turning his eldest son, Danish (a compellingly great Vineet Singh) into a slaphappy Sonny himself.
Younger brother Faizal, forever crafting a mix for his chillam , couldn't care less until events -- and a scornful mother -- jolt him out of stoned apathy. It is here that we see the uncaged intensityof Nawazuddin Siddiqui, alone reason enough for this film to be celebrated. With the ruthlessnessof a pissed-off panther, Siddiqui's Faizal goes on the warpath, a natural despot softened only when rushing towards his voluptuous lady. When on the Three:Ten To Huma, so to speak.
The women are as important to the proceedings as the men, if not more, even if deprived of screentime. Huma Qureshi's Mohsina is a plucky stunner who fearlessly keeps Faizal on a leash,while the marvellous Richa Chaddha, the highlight of Part One,impressively evolves into a sunken-eyed but perenially confident matriarch. There is a visible Indira-ism to her look, just as there is a touch of Jayalalitha to her rival Reema Sen's [ Images ] visage: the wife and the mistress, the mothers presiding over the great, guttural divide.
The men have no such overarching narrative requirements. A schoolboy, slippery of tongue and morality, isnamed Perpendicular and fellates razorblades for fun, a character as memorable as can be. His bastard brother Definite -- played very well by the film's writer Zeishan Quadri -- is a fatally fearless opportunist and a Salman Khan [ Images ] devotee: atribe who, as I've come to know over my years of messageboard feedback, are singularly frightening and most unpredictable.
Kashyap's film, in fact, is a lot about our cinema. Faizal fashions himself after Amitabh Bachchan [ Images ] but snaps when realising he might actually be Shashi Kapoor, Bachchan's frequent sidekick, instead. Despite his mercurial rise, he starts becoming less relevant at a time when Shah Rukh [ Images ] films dominate
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