One of the top three banners of Hindi Film Industry coming up with such a below average, repetitive and brainless project (released widely) simply indicates that they are confident enough to fool ‘we the audience’ once again without any major hiccups. And if a banner like YRF makes this kind of a film, despite having everything under the sky to make a good project, then that clearly represents the state our Hindi Cinema is in the present era and we certainly have lost that adorable understanding, vision and artistic approach witnessed before the 80s.
Explaining with the reference of GUNDAY, its quite easy to think about making a film representing the 70s angry young man and his frustration, but its damn difficult to get into that suppressed psyche of the era without having lived that personally. In other words one can simply assume of recreating or going to the actual locations of KALA PATHHAR (1979) to shoot some sequences (as in GUNDAY) paying his honest tribute to the legendary director Yash Chopra. But to achieve even 10% of the magic created in that dark, unsuccessful classic is almost impossible in this new age filmy world overcautious of just opening weekends, quick returns and the ridiculously infamous multi-crore clubs.
So GUNDAY miserably falls flat in that ambitious effort, resulting in a film which is quite poorly written, has extremely bizarre characters, hamming performances, wasted veterans, forcibly inserted songs and an extreme length which would force you to take few small naps regularly in its various sequences.
On the contrary, the film begins really well from the early childhood of its lead pair, fondly reminding you of the good old days of Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra. This initial section is both performed and directed well with a splendid camerawork and energetic background score resulting in a fine premise. But the entire strong buildup simply gets ruined, the moment those talented kids turn into two extremely stupid, over confident men, who start hamming right from their first scene itself in an uncontrollable manner. And from here onwards, the director’s vision too goes for a toss which is truly incomparable with the first 20 minutes of the film quite frankly. In other words, its just like as if the first 20 minutes of the film have been directed by someone else and the rest by an entirely different person altogether who doesn’t care about who his characters are, how they think and what they wish to achieve in their aimless lives.
Moreover the term ‘Acting’ turns into ‘Over The Top Styling’ in all these badly directed sequences and its just when Irfan Khan enters the screen that one realizes, “Oh there is a real performer too to save us from this severely hamming torture by the overrated team.” In honest terms, Irfan Khan seems to be a GOD-Sent personality in his every single scene providing you the much required relief. But sadly he is not there in the major part of the film and even vanishes off the screen post interval for a pretty long time quite strangely.
Nevertheless, having many bitter things to write about this careless venture, I would like to take it individually pointing towards the utterly confused vision of the team behind this major disappointment. And here is what I felt about its director, actors and production house, expressed in some pretty bold words as required.
Safe romantic dramas and comedies have been a regular feature of Yash Raj films since the 80s. But recently they have also showed us the glimpse of a futuristic vision in their path-breaking films such as KABUL EXPRESS (2006), CHAKDE INDIA (2007), LAAGA CHUNRI MEIN DAAG (2007), NEW YORK (2009), ROCKET SINGH (2009), BADMAASH COMPANY (2010), BAND BAAJA BAARAT (2010) & LADIES VS RICKY BEHL (2011). Now if you look at these names individually then each film has a distinctive story to tell, which is novel, interesting and entertaining too for the end user. But since few of these films were not successful at the box office in the expected big way, so post 2011 the production house simply changed its path and started churning out strictly commercial ventures putting aside all the other important requirements of any novel story, innovative script or an exceptional treatment. And therefore post 2011, all they have given us are just routine, made to order films saying nothing new as per their subject or script like ISHAQZAADE (2012), EK THA TIGER (2012), JAB TAK HAI JAAN (2012), AURANGZEB (2013), SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE (2013), DHOOM 3 (2013) and the latest GUNDAY (2014). Now no doubt few of these films have been a big all time grosser, getting them loads of money like never before. But as far as the quality of movies, scripts and projects is concerned, they are on the downfall since 2011 and maybe it’s the result of the experienced mastermind Late Yash Chopra not being there, with his expert vision and guidance.
Coming back to GUNDAY, it is said that this was the last script Yash Chopra heard. But no article on this declaration ever says that whether he also approved or finalized the script in his own presence or not. Anyway leaving the conclusion up to the reader I would like to move on to the unbearable performances and direction of the film which deserve to be dealt with some severe words for playing with our hard earned money and time irresponsibly.
Talking about the performances first, the actors who actually prove to be worthy of calling actors remain the 2 kids, Darshan Gujar & Jayesh Kardak along with Pankaj Tipathi, Manu Rishi & the supporting ones who were all there in the first 20 minutes of the film, never to return back. Collectively they give us something to enjoy in this 150+ minutes long film as the saving grace. And later on, there is only Irfan Khan trying his level best to move over the mediocre content, but no one else who could be rated as a performer right till the climax (excluding Saurabh Shukla and Victor Banerjee who are pathetically wasted doing nothing).
In the lead, we have a spoilt brat Ranveer Singh, who brings in all those silly, over the top mannerisms used at the various stage shows and “Kofee with Karan” into the film too but still can easily be called the better one among the three. The actor has proved his ‘bindaas’ talent in more than one films in the past, but GUNDAY shows that he has started taking the profession too casually sliding on a downward swing which in reality takes you down much faster than assumed. And in case Ranveer has enacted the role strictly as per the director’s instructions then this remains the fault of the captain of the ship completely without any questions asked.
The same goes with the second hero Arjun Kapoor too. But in his case, the performance cannot even be called as ‘overacting’ because it has to be rated as ‘just pure hamming’ and nothing else. The young entrant acts as if there is no one to stop him from doing any kind of crap acting at all. And surely, when a person has got almost all the strong reputed groups of the industry backing him openly including the Chopras, Khans, Kapoors and Johars, then why he should be worried of any kind of failure or rejection? However, I would like to remind him that success is when the father is known by the name of his son and not the other way round. So its better that he learns the art fast and makes the best of all the blessing showered upon him by the entire industry.
Taking on the multi-talented Priyanka Chopra, its really a pity that recently the versatile actress was seen in many below average, unimportant roles such as in KRISSH 3, ZANJEER and GUNDAY. Particularly in the present film, her role is such a confused one that I wonder whether she ever questioned her act in the final scene (from the director), wherein she is at first helping, hugging, crying and then suddenly shooting like a girl who really doesn’t know what she is supposed to do in that given situation. Undoubtedly its one of the worst performances from the lady, more interested in her sarees, backless blouses and cabaret dance than the more important ‘acting’.
As per the director and his vision, I seriously want to ask that why our Hindi film-makers are extremely shy of adapting fresh stories, plots and subjects?
For instance, its utterly silly to mention that the director Ali Abbas Zafar made his first film as a writer director called MERE BROTHER KI DULHAN (2011), which was basically about two boys and a girl. And now after 3 years he makes his next film GUNDAY again on a theme of two boys and a girl as if he is not familiar with or read any other plot in the whole world except this love theme.
Further how many times we are supposed to watch “two boys-one girl” or “two girls-one boy” films in an idiotic, tedious mode. In fact its really surprising that this particular subject of a love triangle is prevalent in our Hindi cinema since the mid of last century and the big production houses are still confident enough to fool their audience with the same overused plot even in the year 2014.
Now just allow me to take an unsympathetic look at the projects’ cinematic vision as below:
The two kids enter Calcutta as refugees from Bangladesh, get into the dark world of crime and become the undisputed kings of Calcutta ruling the whole city. But the roof of their room still leaks and a bucket is kept to collect it just near to their beds. And they are ‘coalworld’ Dons of Calcutta.
The two Dons are great fighters and they have a terror in the town but they still wear funny pants with a big red heart painted on their bums. Moreover in a song the heart comes on to the front of their white shirts too with an arrow inserted right in the middle.
The two heroes are the big dons of the city but while watching a movie in the theater (sitting in a special arrangement), when a mishap happens, the opponent not even knows their names and asks who are you?
The film opens completely focusing on the crime world around coal smuggling in the first 45 minutes. But once the girl enters their life, the whole business is taken care of on its own and they just keep wooing and fighting for the girl forgetting everything else. So there is no reference of that dark crime world and their well known rule over the city of Calcutta at all in the later reels.
In the initial hour, the two act like some tough, underworld guys. But later suddenly their characters get converted into two clowns or maskharey (as they call it in hindi), following a confused vision of the director who himself doesn’t know that what his two lead characters are all about.
Irfan Khan is the police officer specially called in to catch these two notorious men ruling over the whole city. But after a while the director himself often forgets to call the police officer again in the script, resulting in only few scenes of Irfan in the film, which were actually the only relief moments in this intolerable attempt to put it straight.
As the film is fast moving towards the climax, the two young heroes remind the director about their newly built six packs after doing so much hard work in the gym. Knowing that Ali Abbas Zafar tells them to take off their shirts and there we have a fight between the two, with their bare bodies shining like a typical Salman Khan sequence in the climax.
In the final 30 minutes, the writer-director adds few new twists which can be easily predicted by even a 12 year old child sitting in the theater, playing with his father’s phone. And then he also manages to squeeze in two quick songs in these concluding moments too because otherwise they would have gone wasted even after making to the soundtrack CD.
So reading the above description, one can easily guess what kind of torturous vision is there behind the making of this big banner movie and now in case GUNDAY still goes on to make some instant bucks at the box office then get ready for watching many more craps made on the similar pattern in the coming years for sure.
However, concluding the detailed analysis on a positive note, GUNDAY has a worth praising Cinematography and to some extent the Background score too, which actually loses all its charm post the initial 40 minutes (when the film goes into that silly mode). The art direction is competent, the action remains average and dialogues do seek your attention at few odd places. Plus its soundtrack has a great energetic track “Entriyaan” which is sure going to be played in the coming Dandia Fests a lot. But listening to its other tracks, I was really wondering that why the lyricists today are madly tempering with the URDU language words so badly. Like I am still guessing what is “Assalaam-E-Ishqum” and moreover “Jashn-E-Ishqa” too used in its two separate tracks.
In all for me GUNDAY was a predictable, boring, loud, over the top, mega disappointment from a reputed production house, unfortunately. Moreover watching its two (poorly conceived) protagonists running towards the camera in slow motion, I could only remember another big YRF debacle released few years back. And using the same reference GUNDAY can be easily be called as YRF’s TASHAN released in the year 2014.
But in case you are still interested in watching it then you can surely do that exclusively for its first half an hour and then move out of the theater to do your more important work as desired.
Rating : 1 / 5 (Only for its first 20 mintues & the track “Entriyaan”)
