Gunday

The performance of the leading actors is the main thing that saves the movie Gunday from being a yawning experience. Idea of the movie doesn’t have much novelty to claim as it simply repeats the used out divide and rule thriller pattern involving police and baddies in a slightly funky way.

The story revolves around the two best friends Bikram and Bala. They came to Kolkata from Bangladesh in their childhood and the discriminating refugee tag ignites the fire in them to have a powerful identity. The rise of Bikram and Bala in the dark format and the system’s attempt to bring them down is what the movie talking about.

If you can replace the single heroes in those old police vs gangster/Don thrillers with two main protagonists, there is no great difference between them and Gunday in terms of story. The usual ego clash of the targets here gets wrapped with romance. Once you get familiar with the plot, you will start scripting the upcoming sequences and Gunday rarely deviates from your ideas.

It’s the performance of the actors that helps the movie to have that enthusiasm. Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh have that level of eccentricity required. Unlike Ram Leela, we get to see a calm version of mustache wala Ranveer which I found interesting. Arjun was also comfortable playing Bala, and the actor definitely has a deadly evil smile. More than enough body show of both the actors is there. Priyanka Chopra did her conflict creator character nicely. Irrfan Khan once again gets to play a mumbling police officer and seeing a cool attitude guy among a lot of heavy attitude characters was a relief. Those child actors also did their part impressively. Saurabh Shukla was left unused.

After Mere Brother Ki Dulhan Ali Abbas Zafar has taken a totally different subject with Gunday. In terms of visualizing the idea, I think the director has done a fair job but when it came to scripting the director has gone for the retro emotions and ideas. The stage being the 90’s doesn’t really justify making the content look like a 90’s drama. Dialogues are okay. Cinematography is good. Visual effects are satisfactory and Sohail Sen’s Music was good.

So the final verdict is that its an average film that has some good performances. The weak and predictable script is the biggest minus. My rating for punch less Gunday is “Tang Tang Ta”- 2.5/5 it is.

By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

View all of Aswin Bharadwaj's posts.