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Gangster (2006) Director: Anurag Basu Cast: Imraan Hashmi, Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut Time: 117 min. Hindi with English subtitles Rating: |
The subtitle for Anurag Basu’s Gangster is “A Love Story,” which basically cues you in to the obvious: this is a Bollywood film. Yet, despite the inescapable cliché of the Bollywood love triangle, Gangster offers some slick production, sophisticated storytelling, and a few unexpected plot twists that save it from being just another masala melodrama.
The film begins with soulful lounge singer Akash (Hashmi) in Seoul gently longing for the frizzy-haired Simran (Ranaut) as she indulges in daily drinking binges in a transparent attempt to self-destruct. After Akash saves Simran from trying to drown herself, she divulges the secret that drives her to drink.
Simran confesses that she is in love with and waiting impatiently for the return of Daya (Ahuja), a gangster from Mumbai who fled to Dubai to evade the police. As Simran and Daya escaped from Mumbai, a street urchin who they adopted as their son was killed in a police ambush. Distraught over the dissolution of her “family,” Simran has sought solace in alcohol. Akash offers Simran a chance for a new life and a real family, and she takes it. Everything is wonderful for a few days until Daya returns from Dubai.
The first thing that you notice about Gangster is the incredibly slick production that transcends even the super glossy productions of high-end Bollywood movies. The images are keenly crafted, sometimes with a quality that rivals magazine ads. Many of the scenes feature brilliant color schemes balanced with complex compositions similar to those in Yimou Zhang’s Hero.
Complementing Gangster’s visual beauty is its sophisticated storytelling technique that relies on frames and flashbacks. The movie opens in the present before shifting to a flashback that contains many additional flashbacks. The story periodically revisits the present to juxtapose it with the past.
Not only does Basu manage to keep the plot from collapsing into confusion, but he uses the temporal changes to realistically develop his characters and to carefully build suspense. Each time shift unveils new information or a new twist that further entangles you as you try to figure out what’s happening.
In this sense, the plot is refreshingly unpredictable. Just as you begin to think you have everything figured out, the plot twists again, throwing your speculation into chaos. Basu actually succeeds in keeping you guessing almost until the closing credits.
For a Bollywood film, Gangster offers an interesting and highly atypical female character. Aside from drinking herself into oblivion on a nightly basis, Simran engages in premarital sex and becomes pregnant. Although these behaviors would never be accepted in a standard Bollywood film, Basu sidesteps the issue by setting the immodest behavior in Seoul (much like Salaam Namaste’s action was based in Australia).
Despite this slightly daring attempt to portray a realistic female role, Gangster still treads into classic Bollywood territory, which only drags it down. The most obvious Bollywood angle is the love triangle, ubiquitous in the industry since it began. Maybe Basu can earn a few points for giving this particular iteration of the love triangle a more authentic resolution.
Gangster’s other Bollywood hang-up is the melodrama that appears near the film’s end. Simran gets a little too emotional and behaves a little too irrationally. Daya is reduced to a puddle of sobbing manhood, and Akash pushes himself into a wholly unexpected and slightly unbelievable realm.
At least some good acting from Ahuja and Ranaut saves Gangster from collapsing in its worst moments. (A Shah Rukh Khan would’ve taken the sobbing and rage to an unwatchable level of blubbering and mugging.) And once the melodramatic parts pass, the movie regains its tight plot and great visuals.
Overall, Gangster is a suspenseful, entertaining, well-paced film. Its slick production can’t gloss over the few less savory moments, but indulging in Gangster is far from the most heinous film-watching crime you could make.
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