Raj Kumar Yadav is convincing but his character is short-lived."Don't you see I'm taking my brother home," Faizal bellows. Huma Qureshi is a striking beauty and one of the most charming female faces in films, in recent times. Tigmanshu Dhulia mellows down his vocal chords here but maintains his authoritative demeanour. The next actor who gains your attention is debutant Zeishan Quadri (also the co-writer of the film).Īs the stepbrother Definite, he is compelling, confident and a talent to look forward to. Credit it to the intensity and impact of Nawazuddin that you don’t miss the soul of the series, Manoj Bajpayee in the sequel. Undoubtedly performances are the film’s mainstay. Also the grim film carries forward its zany sense of humour like in the scene where a brass-band pays homage at funerals through gloomy Bollywood numbers. Everything from the gritty action, crude dialect, offbeat music, engaging camerawork is authentic to the core and adds to the effect. There is no compromise on the intensity in the ambience of the anecdote. The epilogue, though predictable, is poignant. Only this time you get to see it from the internal side, learning what Faizal and family went through.
#GANGS OF WASSEYPUR 2 REVIEW FULL#
Also the narrative comes full circle returning to the opening mob-attack sequence with which the first part initiated. A chase sequence amidst the bustling city is as real as it gets. With guns and gadgets coming into picture, the revenge drama is regular yet relatable. The gradual progression over eras is subtly and smartly punctuated with strategically placed elements, distinctive of the decade. Nevertheless, despite the sequel being in standard zone, it is often absorbing.
Kashyup often camouflages the shallowness of Faizal with glamourized shots of drugs and violence. And with this divergence in the characterization, you don’t root as strongly for Faizal as you did for Sardar Khan, though both are equally immoral, vicious and well-enacted characters. Perpetually-doped don who lacks business sense and is vulnerable to materialism, he is quite the opposite of his father Sardar Khan, the protagonist of the prequel. Though Nawazuddin Siddiqui has immense screen-presence despite his straight-faced demeanour, his one-dimensional characterization is an intermittent letdown. Thereafter the film keeps extending endlessly turning out to be an ordinary gang-war account. The tone of the film changes in every alternate, and though it’s intentional, you stop feeling for the characters in the fluctuation.
With stray bullets killing mortals erratically, death becomes so commonplace that it no more leaves an impact. Peripheral characters (who were central to the story in the prequel) are eliminated. Onscreen Faizal indulges in substance abuse while off-screen director Anurag Kashyup gets indulgent with the characters and the chronicle. It’s indulgence, rather over-indulgence, that sabotages the sequel to an extent. New characters in the form of Perpendicular, Tangent, Definite, et al are introduced and their juvenile criminal activities and swiveling storytelling structure evidently remind of the Brazilian Masterpiece City of God, a regular reference point for this genre. The narrative continues to be as random and racy with the revenge drama claiming more lives rampantly. However all is not what it seems with a lot of double-cross and triple-cross in store. Ramadheer Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia) continues to be the antagonist who, this time, attempts to instigate Definite (Zeishan Quadri), Faizal’s stepbrother, against him. However with every other local aspiring to be a Sultaan or a Sardar, the city and its crime scene aren’t as it used to be. Post the death of his father Sardar Khan, followed with his brother’s murder, Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) takes over as the dreaded gang-lord of the crime syndicate in Wasseypur. The sequel starts exactly from where the forerunner ended. However beyond a point it falls slack on story, after which it stretches the yarn, turning repetitive and foreseeable. With the two episodes being conceived and filmed simultaneously, the sequel carries forward the same grit, grammar, vigour and vengeance of its predecessor. Having said that it’s important to clarify that Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2 is not substandard cinema by any means.