Gangs of wasseypur: the school of details

4.5/5

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Richa Chaddha, Reema Sen, Huma Qureshi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Piyush Mishra


Sultana looted British trains. Years after Shahid Khan continues to loot the same trains on the name of Sultana while Sultana is retired. Sultana takes on Shahid Khan and paralyzes his strength by killing all his men. 
Shahid khan now works for Ramadeer singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia), and gets killed by Ramadeer himself when he's planning a conspiracy against his boss. And here starts the revenge saga. Shahid's son Sardar khan (Manoj Bajpayee) doesn't want to assassin the big-shot politico Ramadeer, but  wants to break him down in pieces of defeat, insult, humiliation and fear, one by one. The signature line of the film explains this well which is in colloquial hindi: Teri keh ke loonga.

No one can deny the fact that Anurag Kashyap is the man of details. See how Sardar learns to make bombs in jail, or the scene where his son, Faisal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) tries to hide guns in the train to save them from cops. These are just a few good examples. You have to see the film to embrace the style of story telling by the guy behind Dev-D to say the the least. 


In this film, you can see shades of Omkara, directed by another genius Vishal Bhardwaj. This story is not about hero or villain, it's not about good or bad. It is about some bad guys trying to be more sadist than the other. All brutal characters, delivered by beautiful performances. 


Every time Sardar's wife (Richa Chaddha) is on screen, she will have you in splits by her completely adult one liners and a sleek performance that's hundred times better than some so called top actresses. She is confident as a dominating lady and the only one who Sardar khan is scared of. All other characters deliver their part of fun and make you laugh till you miss the next dialogue. Even some of the darkest scenes here will make you smile at least once. 


The script is awesomely executed by its director. You can't find any loopholes in direction when Kashyap is on the seat. The best scene is the final part which leaves so much intrigue that makes you die to watch the sequel. 


The music delivered by Sneha Kahwalkar fits in the story so well that it looks like being made right when the scene is shot. Even lyrics of the tracks look like a part of the situation. The narrations by Piyush Mishra are worth paying attention to.


This one takes you completely to Wasseypur, a small town in Dhanbad. Because it's shot in where it belongs, with attention to smallest things like the way these characters deliver their lines in the perfect accent, and a lot of other things. Yet this one is completely modern in its treatment whether it is about the perfect background score, the actors who live their characters or they way the story is been told making you engrossed till the closing credits.


Overall, this piece of work is completely worth Cannes. Watch is again and again to find out more details every time.  

Shaitan: It's mad, messy, but doesn't stink

3/5

Director: Bijoy Nambiar

Lead: Rajeev Khandelwal as Inspector Arvind Mathur, Kalki Koechlin as Amrita Jayshankar a.k.a. Amy, Shiv Pandit as Dushyant Sahu a.k.a. Dash, Neil Bhopalam as Zubin Shroff, Gulshan Devaiya as Karan Chaudhary a.k.a. KC, Kirti Kulhari as Tanya Sharma

There's a very nice dialogue in this film. "There are two kind of friends. one, you can call them even at 2 am, Second, you can call them only at 2 am." Shaitan is the story of second kind of guys. From these five, three are brats of super rich parents, one is an upcoming actress and one is a drug champion. Brats include Amy (Kalki), Zubin (Neil), and KC (Gulshan). Tanya (Kirti) is a budding actress and Dash (Shiv) frequents jail in drugs dealing. Doping, drinking, casual sex, one to one fights, roaming around streets of the city till morning is their regular schedule. But their routine goes for a toss when they knock down a couple on scooter. You can see their merciless nature when they run away from the scene crushing the dead bodies under the wheels of their super cool Hummer. Now they must pay 25 Lakhs to the corrupt cop to close the case. They decide to kidnap Amy and ask for ransom from her dad. But it doesn't go as smooth as they had planed from the moment Mathur (Rajeev) is handed over the case. He's a brutal, bad ass but honest cop who will not think twice two push a politician from his bungalow terrace as a girl complains that he misbehaved with her. While Mathur is behind the kidnappers as well as Amy's disappeared friends, our Shaitans' lives go up side down as they are running around and getting in to the mess created by themselves. 

     What is worth watching about this one is, you love watching these guys getting in to one mess or other while they are still cracking jokes and create dark humor that makes you laugh, though you are scared to laugh because you are foreseeing the problems that they are delving into. While they are trying to smoothen their issues, Mathur keeps giving them goose bumps. The soundtrack by various music directors and a heavy metal number by an awesome Indian band, Bhayanak Maut keeps you engrossed. A chasing scene makes you feel itchy and at the same time tickling you with a retro song "Khoya khoya chaand" as the background music, brilliantly remixed. Cinematography is mind blowing by Madhie, and screenplay by the director himself doesn't give you feeling of a small budget film. Nabiar does a great job of a director, still you can taste Anurag Kashyap flavor in between. 

     Apart from all this super exciting and almost never before story line, it has it's own loopholes. There are some irrelevant fillers like Kalki's flashback and a flashback story of another brat who has nothing to do with the story, which is played by "Udaan (2010)" lead Rajat Barmecha. The climax turns out to be a very regular 'good vs evil' drama, so 'non-Anurag'. These things make the film look longer because they keep breaking the link between the main story and the audience's scared minds. This film has bits and pieces of Anurag's debut film "Paanch". A few scenes where these kids visualize their planning, is shown on screen, which turns out to be a very nice experiment to see. If you forget some loopholes in the story, it also has many scenes you may have never scene before. These boys don't think twice before breaking someone's head for no reason or bashing a TV on someone's head because he was trying to rape one of them. These kind of scenes are very nicely filmed with no assumed moments, all on screen. 

Overall, Shaitan is not something if you are looking for an entertainer, it's not a time-pass. I recommend watching this to experience something unusual. Don't miss the those hidden details and a sharp direction.

Kung fu panda 2: Awesomeness is an understatement

4.5 / 5

Po and The Furious Five

When Kung fu panda surprised us two years back, with Po doing all those Kung fu stunts and defeating Tai lung, The second one comes with more surprises, more action, much better special effects, and in 3D. 3D effects in this one are superb. This one has more humor too.


While Po is now a well known "Dragon warrior", his dad's business has grown because of him. After hunting down Tai lung, it's not over for Po. He has more challenges. The peacock Shen has made a weapon will make Kung fu extinct, killing all kung fu masters. He's already killed Master rhino, and Po hears the news. Now, Po is ready to take on Shen, with his super charged team of 'The Furious Five' - Tigress, Mantis, Viper, Crane and Monkey. While fighting with Shen, he also has to find out why his parents abandoned him. Watch how Po reaches Shen and destroys his weapon.

Little Po

Po is still lazy, innocent, cute, foodie and fat. He's developed a little inclination for Tigress. Tigress is more furious, you'll see some her moves which you didn't see before. The moment Po appears on the screen, it's full of humor and action till the end. You'll meet the kid Po while he takes you in to flashback to find out how the goose became his father. The Furious Five with two more Kung fu masters, Ox and Croc create that action packed momentum which never goes down. When Master Shifu enters the action scene, he lightens up our faces with those moves.




Kudos to those 3D effects. In every scene, you say, "wow". While everything going simultaneously, you'll not know what to appreciate - 3D effects, humor, Po's cuteness or swift action. It would be a sin to miss this film.

Directed By: Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Written By: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger

Lead: Jack Black (Po), Angelina Jolie (Tigress), Dustin Hoffman (Master Shifu), Jackie chan (Monkey)