Gunday (14 Feb 2014)

Cast: Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

To start with, this movie is quite a chameleon. It’s promos and promotions (TV appearances etc.) give you the impression of high quality bromance between the protagonists and their fun filled wooing of a diva. Whereas, it’s opening scenes are well crafted derivations of aftermath of 1971 Indo Pak War, which separated the modern day Bangladesh from India, thereby creating a partition between West Bengal and East Bengal. But in actuality, the film turns out to be a tribute to the angry young man, Robin Hood like films of Amitabh Bachchan which also had high dosage of intense camaraderie between the heroes, thundering dialogues and high dollops of performances by coquettish damsels. You feel like you have been transported to the film era of the 70’s.

It’s quite evident, that immense hard work has been input by cast and crew, in terms of - r&d, apparels, appearances, set designing, performances etc. In fact the opening scenes, especially the performances by child artists are very good. They actually raise your expectations from the movie to a different level. Even the facial and body language similarity between the two protagonists and their childhood appearances have been matched to the T.

The entire leading cast – Ranveer, Arjun and Priyanka are in their best body forms i.e. very toned, agile and very Hollywood like. In fact, the cabaret performance by Priyanka can give many a similar Hollywood movie performances, quite a run for their money! Lookswise, even in her avatar as a Bengali coquettish lass, she scores well in both traditional Bengali dressing and full-of-tease acting. Such impersonation is not easy. Otherwise too, she has acted well. However, you do feel that her role is longer and meatier than what is actually required on the lines of the movie. Ranveer and Arjun are bursting with both energy and muscles. Their on-screen camaraderie as ‘Bala-Bikram’ remind you of ‘Jai-Veeru’ (Amitabh and Dharmendra)! They also look good in whatever they wear and have acted well. A special mention needs to be made of the fact that the dress designing is not completely on the lines of the 70’s. It’s kind of fusion of the 70’s with the modern day sensibility. As expected, Saurabh Shukla and Irrfan Khan have acted well too.

The movie holds well till interval. And, then it loosens it’s grip, both in terms of objective and enactment. Some scenes are really long and unnecessary.

Showing pure and innocent love in the backdrop of extreme and realistic violence and turbulence is no mean feat. Directors like - Vidhu Vinod Chopra (‘1942 A Love Story’) and Mani Ratnam (‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’) have achieved this with great elan. Sadly, ‘Gunday’ attempts this, but falls short of similar final delivery.