Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Gangs of Wasseypur 2 review



On a very occasions are the sequels much better than the first installment. This is one.

When Sardar Khan meets his gory end at the end of the first film, viewers are left wondering as to how the second part can hold the promise shown by the first, when the main tour de force now out of the story. All these doubts are swept away a few minutes into the second part as Faizal Khan steps effortlessly into Sardar Khan’s place. 

The film starts with Sardar Khan’s funeral, and two of his assailants being bumped off by his elder son Danish. A further ten minutes into the film, Danish himself is gunned down . This is a rude awakening for the other son Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) from his marijuana induced stupor, who begins by killing his friend ,a local politician  who had been a co planner  of Sardar’s murder and the co assailant of Danish.  He swiftly follows by gunning down the remaining killers of his father and brother and Wasseypur now has a new crime lord. He makes a conditional arrangement with MLA Ramadhir Singh, the man who has defacto been the cause of deaths of his own father and brother so that  the local administration does not come in the way of his illegal activities. With the help of this truce, Faizal makes the gang into a crime syndicate, ruling the town with an iron hand having gone from Kattas to Kalashnikovs and having a cut in everything from scrap sales to government contracts. He seems to be unstoppable, his only weakness being his lust for easy money in copious amounts which plays the major role in his eventual end.

Enter Definite (Zeeshan Qadri), Sardar Khan’s son by other marriage who will prove to be Faizal’s nemesis. Having grown up under Ramadhir’s influence, his attitude is both of contempt and awe for Faizal. He gets into Faizal’s gang and quickly rises through it, but he is also in touch with Ramadhir to do his bidding in weakening the Khan household and having their empire to himself. He does everything to please Faizal, including carrying out a deadly attack on Shamshad Alam (Rajkumar Yadav), a local businessman and collaborator with Faizal who had double crossed Faizal and got him arrested. Ramadhir gets  another mole to infiltrate Faizal’s gang, who initially makes him great profit as far as bagging govt contracts, causing him to ignore Definite and Definite in turn gets embittered and starts dismantling Faizal’s network, with the help of Ramadhir and JP,  while being a part of it. In the end, it is revealed that JP and Definite have an agenda of their own as Ramadhir is as big a nuisance for his son JP as Faizal.

Much has been written about Nawazuddin Siddiquis great  performance but the surprise package of this film is as in the first, Tigmanshu Dhulia as Ramadhir Singh and Zeeshan Qadri (also the writer) as Definite. Rest  of the cast is brilliant as well with Richa Sharma effortlessly playing the role of the sixty year old Nagma . Pankaj Tripathi as Sultan Qureshi,  Piyush Mishra as Farhan, Aditya Kumar  as Perpendicular and Satya Pal JP are great as well in their short time on the screen. Devoid of stars, it gives us pleasures of pure acting performances.

The film provides many comic reliefs in between the gore that is spilled like the abuse laced conversation between the assailants who are going to carry out a hit on Sultan to the funny moments between Faizal and his wife Mohsina (Huma Qureshi). On the other end are chilling sequences like local shopkeepers pooling in resources to give a ransom for the murder of the Faizal’s school going brother Perpendicular, who has been looting their shops or that of Sultan, who coolly shoots his own sister, Danish’s  widow when he goes for an all out attack on Faizal’s remaining family.

The sequel scores over the first part because unlike the first, it does not have to build up the background of the story and can get on with it straightaway. Earthy expletive laced dialogues seem more realistic than the eloquent urdu laced utterances of conventional Bollywood fare.  Simple but effective dialogues like Ramadhir Singh explaining how people will continue to remain c***** as long as there are films are memorable and that itself is the USP of the film, realism and showing us an India which we conveniently choose to ignore from our bubble wrapped surroundings. The film does have its weak links like over characterization (over 300 speaking parts in both the films) and being a little lengthy and detailed. 

And last but not the least, Sneha Khanwalkar’s minimalist unconventional music which combines tradition and imperfection to give a never before effect, the tracks “Chi Cha Ledar” and “Kala Re” being most notable.

This one (along with the first) definitely carries on the tradition set by The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface and The Departed, again reaffirming the fact that talent in filmmaking is with the independent productions and not Bollywood.

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