Gangs of (Already-visited) Wasseypur-2: Movie Review

First and foremost, I liked Gangs of Wasseypur-I, and secondly, I was tad underwhelmed by part-II. This is a film, full of aesthetics, for violence, for cinema, for drama, characterization, music, story and every god damn thing that should be done properly. The only problem being, it is boring.

A lot of things happen in this film, a lot of characters come into the picture and add their stories to the bigger picture, add twists to the plot, take the story forward and honestly,  that is the problem with it. Film goes on and on, people keep coming and going, story shifts from one character to another, and then comes back to one of the previous characters, and conclude his story, then moves to another one, in between another one comes in, and because of this character previous character finds its culmination, and this goes on and on, in an arduous manner.

I don’t know a lot of things about screenwriting, the story is dense, but it seems way too distracted, unfocussed, probably this was the problem with the previous film as well, but the experience, overall, in the last edition made it worth a watch. This time the experience is merely a continuation and nothing new as such is offered here, may be watching them both together would be quite an experience, but separately, it isn’t anything mind blowing.

“Gangs of wasseypur-2” is not without poetry, though. Sultan (played, astoundingly well by Pankaj Tripathi), being one filled with nuances and poison brings brutality to this scenario and makes this movie unpredictable, but honestly, ending was predictable, undeniably. Mostly in the second half of the film narrative seems to be focused and moves towards a finite end, otherwise, it is much more of business progress, the action comes less from the hatred towards each other, but more because of profit.

It starts with the last scene from part-I, and inherits the vengeance from there. From one generation, it moves on to another, only one who witnesses the complete shift, from the very beginning till the end of it is Ramadhir Singh,  and his death is the ultimate goal of the Khans, the successors of Sardar Khan.

The color, the tone, and the humour, everything is in the right place. The characters are certainly loveable, doped Faizal played by Nawazuddin is outstanding. He has his own charm and shares brilliant chemistry with his heroineHuma Quesreshi playing Mohsina, amongst a hoard of actors, Zeishan Quadri as Definite, is definitely confident, rest every other character is fine. Piyush Mishra, speaks disparity through his eyes, the subtlest of the lot, the most empathizing of them all.

But nothing saves it from boredom, after a while you know that it all will end somehow, that everything will indeed fall on itself, the way it does, in every crime story, and that it doesn’t make a lot of difference. The experience offers nothing new, primarily a repetition from the last one. But yes, it is undeniably well done aesthetically and cinematically.

Salil Shankar

Film-maker || Technical Writer || Blogger

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: