Movie review: Gangs of Waasseypur II - violence begets violence

Spoiler alert.

Whether or not you liked Gangs of Wasseypur 1, you will not like GOW 2. And if you haven’t seen either of the GOW series at all, you should just go back to playing Angry Birds or whatever else it is that you like to do. As for me, I didn’t dig GOW 1 but really liked GOW 2 but that might also have something to do with the presence of Manoj Bajpai in the first installment.

GOW 2 is akin to a Quentin Tarantino film when it comes to the beautifully choreographed violence, a Martin Scorsese in terms of the gangster genre, but truly and essentially it is director Anurag Kashyap in all his ‘Kashyapness’. It is all that and more, made desi to the point where you can almost smell the gobar (even though the film doesn’t necessarily involve gobar in any way).

One can’t really look at the two parts of GOW in isolation from each other, not because one doesn’t know how to but because Kashyap tells one not to. He wants you to think of part two as an extension of the first, and think you shall. The main difference between the parts comes down to one simple word: story. Watching GOW 1 was like reading a Dostoyevsky novel where there are so many characters, you find it impossible to keep track.

It’s not just the characters you have to keep track of. The film also has numerous plot points you need to follow because you know they’ll become important eventually. If the first part made you story sick with an overdose of it, part two will leave you story hungry from a lack of it. But hey, wouldn’t you rather be hungry than sick?

On the flipside, because part two has practically no new characters, it feels much lengthier than its predecessor which was too long for its own good anyway. Also, to be completely honest, important characters like Faizal Khan and Danish Khan who were introduced in the first part seem slightly underdeveloped and hum drum in the second part. How Faizal follows his predecessors’ path and enters the so-called family business is so Godfather-ly, it’s not even funny.

That said, there are two things that make GOW 2 stand notches above not only GOW but most other Indian films. The first is the ensemble cast and the terrific performances they deliver. Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Faizal Khan is out of this world. Huma Qureshi as Mohsina is so good, she makes you wish the story had more of her in it. Aditya Kumar as the little boy Perpendicular is a delight to watch.

The second outstanding quality about GOW 2 is the gorgeous violence. The scenes are so handsomely shot, they fill in for the traditional song and dance numbers in regular films. A scene towards the end deserves special mention here. It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted and gets slightly long but is masterfully choreographed nevertheless.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, November 4^th, 2012.

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