Direction: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Huma Quereshi, Zeishan Quadri
Rating: *** 1/2
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Huma Quereshi, Zeishan Quadri
Rating: *** 1/2
Gangs of Wasseypur II
is less like a movie sequel, more like the season finale of an ongoing (and
admittedly, engaging) TV series. Part I
had no real ending. The death of Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) was the sort of
crucial juncture you expect the next episode to pick up from. In Part II, there’s no need for a
long-drawn establishment of premise, with characters whose stories play out in
fast forward. This one isn’t slow. There’s just less motion blur.
But if Wasseypur I
was about Sardar Khan, Wasseypur II
is more distinctly about his son and successor Faizal Khan (Nawazuddin
Siddiqui). Kashyap’s version of a Michael Corleone is the pot-smoking, Amitabh
Bachchan-channelling boy with no aspirations of becoming a gang leader. He
looks on bemused, and presumably doped out of his head, as his brother Danish
(Vineet Singh) shoots one of his father’s murderers.
His transition to a feared gangster is not fully explained,
yet the film kicks into gear as he comes into his own, with new allies and
largely old enemies. Nawazuddin revels as the detached don who goes from endearingly
funny (as he woos the woman he loves) to scarily aloof (he shoots a man over a
slight and coolly walks away).
In Kashyap’s pulp-fiction version of the Jharkhand mafia
wars, violence is fundamental. It’s graphic, easy and often without
deliberation. The gravity of death is replaced by an ironical matter-of-factness:
the cries of mourning are drowned out by the cheap noise of a brass band. Cinematic
realism pervades, not only in the film, but in the minds of its characters: “Everyone
has a movie playing inside his head,” says Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia). The
fantasies are of filmi romances and filmi murders.
The significant new character is Faizal’s stepbrother,
Definite (Zeishan Quadri). The boy with a bizarre name and a Tere Naam hairstyle is born with a gun
in hand, and goes on to aid Faizal on his meandering path to revenge.
The women have less significant roles than in Part I. They inhabit the fringes – as
mothers and wives who in turns egg and console their husbands and sons. But
that’s probably as true of the setting as it is of the film.
The movie plays out amid political and financial
machinations – illegal scrap metal trading, election rigging – not unheard of
in Jharkhand. Yet, it would be a mistake to judge Wasseypur for factual correctness. Kashyap shows familiarity with
this world in his attention to detail – the typical Hindi accents, the Ray Ban
shades, the pager. But they enhance the flavour rather than the facts.
Wasseypur is as much a celebration of small-town India as it is a sinister
revenge tragedy. If the subject wasn’t so gory, you’d call it charming.
It ends with a climax fitting for its dramatic characters
and storyline – in its guns-blazing, blood-spilling glory, it’s reminiscent of
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. And with
a maniacal smile, Faizal could be Jharkhand’s very own Travis Bickle.
-Sarit Ray
August 09, 2012
