Nishaanchi, Review: Hits some, misses some
Quintessential Anurag Kashyap. If not Bihar or Jharkhand, it must be UP. If one was titled Gangs of Wasseypur, this one could be titled Gangsters of Kanpur, but it’s not quite the same. If Wasseypur had a Part II, this one declares that it will have a Part II, after the end credits. We don’t know whether Nishaanchi’s Part II was shot as single film, like Wasseypur, and had to be divided into two films. Wasseypur, the composite, was 319 minutes long, hence the split into two. Nishaanchi is 177 minutes long, Wasseypur I was 160 minutes. Though the individual parts did not set the box–office aflame, cumulatively, they proved to be profitable. Over the years, the Wasseypur films have assumed a minor cult status. Both parts were released in 2012. Thirteen years after the hit ‘duo’ comes a film that, once again, has violent, murderous crimes, in Hindi-Urdu and their dialect-speaking characters at its centre, with plenty of ‘kantaaps’, but takes off tangentially far too often, taking the audience along. Circular narratives are difficult, but can be productive, if the circles are concentric, not eccentric, as in Nishaanchi. Nishaanchi (sharp-shooter) misses the target, but, luckily, not by much.
A wrestler named Jabardast falls in love with a girl, Manjari, while watching her hit the flying disc repeatedly in a sharp-shooting competition. He roots for her, applauds when the target is struck, and ends-up marrying her. Formerly employed in a daily wages job, he now hopes to make a career as a wrestler. The small town in Kanpur has a large gymnasium (‘akhada’, in Hindustani), run by a bulky Bhola Pahelwan, where some 20 wrestlers, in the barest of loin-cloths, are trained and groomed. Jabardast is easily the best of the lot, though he does not have the bulging sinews like the others. When it comes to selections for the state wrestling competition, Bhola picks a team of three, led by his son-in-law, which does not include Jabardast. Jabardast feels genuinely slighted and insulted, and nurses a desire to teach Bhola and his son-in-law a lesson.
The couple is blessed with a male child, and, within 10 minutes, Manjari delivers a twin. Both are elated. Jabardast visits Baba Lasan, a mysterious old man, who a lot of the small towners look-up to, but who is not averse to getting someone killed, if he feels that the victim deserved to die. There, Jabardast sees a woman, who has a new-born baby in her arms, who has come to seek justice. She is in tears, and about to commit suicide, because, she alleges, that Bhola’s son-in-law had an affair with her, did not tell her he was married, and is not willing to accept her, now that she has given birth. Jabardast offers to ‘eliminate’ the villain, and Baba Lasan gives him the go-ahead. He goes to the gym and tells the culprit that he wants to have a private word with him. The man asks him to wrestle with him and lose, if he wants a private audience, and Jabardast agrees. But, in the bout, instead of losing, Jabardast kills the two-timer.
Named Dabloo and Babloo, the two sons of Jabardast see their father being taken to jail, while their mother is unable to tell them where he is going. All through these developments, there is a man called Ambika Prasad lurking around, a wheeler-dealer, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Ambika notices that Dabloo is good at using the sling-shot to target mangoes from high branches. He teaches him how to use a gun. Jabardast is told by a constable that he is being taken to the court, where he will be released. But his hands will have to be hand-cuffed at the back. He is then attacked and killed by a drug addict and the constable, although he keeps fighting valiantly, till his last breath. Ambika tells Dabloo that Bhola had his father killed, and gets him to kill Bhola, deceitfully. Sent to a children’s reform home, Dabloo returns as a hardened criminal, and starts working for Ambika, who is now in the business of money laundering and land-grabbing. Ambika tells him to bump off a kathak teacher who is leading the resistance by some home-owners to sell him their houses. Dabloo kills the dance teacher, but falls in love with his daughter, who is also her father’s student, after one look at her. Finding a picture of hers with her father, he tears off the father’s part and preserves the torn-out picture of the girl, Rinku. She has not seen him kill her father, and he decides to keep it a secret, because he is smitten by her. Rinku takes-up a job as an item-song girl with a troupe, re-naming herself Rangeli Rinku. Dabloo wants the three of them, including Babloo, to rob a bank.
Beginning with the tame lead-up to the bank robbery, and then going into several flashbacks, the film is written by three writers, Ranjan Chandel, Anurag Kashyap and Prasoon Mishra. But it moves in more than three directions. The focus keeps shifting from Jabardast to Dabloo to Manjari to Bhola to Rinku to Ambika to local bands dressed in finery, who belt out numbers that are a hangover from ‘Kaesa tera jalvaa, kaesa tera pyaar’, from Dev D. One song is about the spirit of ‘willing to die’ during a wrestling bout, sung at the akhada, in English, in heavily Indian-accented pronunciations, as spoken by half-educated North Indians. The other tries to link names of dozens of films into its lyrics, but proves no match for ‘Merey jeevan saathee’, an Anand Bakshi gem from Ek Duuje Ke Liye. But the first song is heard right in the beginning of the film, as if it is sung by a ‘sootradhaar’ (the narrator), exhorting the audience to watch the ‘filam’. As the audience has already firmly ensconced in their seats, it might be a case of preaching to the converted. The bank robbery itself is hardly convincing. How and why is Dabloo cock-sure that he will be able to grab the rifle of the security guard, by merely engaging him in a conversation, about how the rifle is/should be used? What makes him declare to Rinku that the entire robbery will be completed within 20 minutes? How does the police land-up while the robbery is in progress? Nothing is explained.
Why does Jabardast persist in his wrestling ambitions when he knows that Bhola will never select him? Though down and out, the Jabardast-Manjari couple do not consider reviving her shooting career, which could provide much-needed cash, and Jabardast does not consider any other form of employment. Even when Ambika threatens Manjari with dire consequences, unless she hands over her house to him, for his development project, she just puts up a brave front, but no real fight. In times when people are being killed all around, she shows no inclination to pick-up her guns, hanging on the walls (am I pre-empting Part II?). Though we do see Manjari doing something like stitching or knitting, in one single shot, it is surely not enough to feed and raise two children, and meet other household expenses. It is too much to accept that Dabloo will be able to keep the secret, that he had killed Rinku’s father, for long, as he does. Dabloo has the gumption to bring Manjari home, ask Babloo to scram, and make love to the danseuse. A resilient Manjari catches Rinku and Babloo (yes, Babloo) with, almost, his pants down, and merely cautions him. One would have expected her to raise hell.
One does not know what to make of the band’s songs. Are they tropes for comic relief, or are they some ill-conceived satires? What can we make of the lead actor saying “you will have to choose between Mughal-e-Azam and Hum Aapke Hain Koun, considering both were blockbusters.” You even have a reference to Raja Hindustani. Is this Brechtian distancing? Or another attempt at comedy? Are these ‘funny’ interludes in tune with the theme of the film? No, they are not. The only truly positive male character in the film, Jabardast, is killed off, and the other positive character, his wife Manjari, is made to suffer and endure all through the film. All the others are either ruthless gang-leaders or their goons, with names like Puraaney (meaning old) and Hawa (wind) Hawai. Rinku is the only other notable female character, and she wiggles her bottom and chest in front of drooling audiences, drinks alcohol, and participates in a bank robbery. You do appreciate the rebellious Dabloo, who will not hesitate to train his gun on his Godfather, Ambika, should he come in the way of his love for Manjari, but Ambika is one more of the characters for whom you have no sympathy. Not quite a Mughal-e-Azam situation, is it? Baba Lasan, Bhola, his son-in-law, the only Police Inspector in the story, a drug addict hired to kill Jabardast, the constable who assists in the killing, the inmates of the children’s remand home who pick on Dabloo…you name any one of them, and you are naming a person with a downright criminal bent of mind and palpably, totally unethical life. Babloo is neither here nor there. He is an unwilling partner in his brother’s bank robbery, reading threatening lines from a piece a paper, while pointing a gun at the bank manager. Not much later, he develops feelings for Rinku, who, in the absence of Dabloo, showers her favours on Babloo. No wonder he is called a coward, in one instance.
Playing with time-lines through flashbacks, director Anurag Kashyap could have better integrated the segments. With fighting, killing, singing, drinking and ‘dirty’ dancing as the ambience, not much of histrionics were required. But he extracts some consummate artistry in the scenes involving Jabardast and/or Manjari. There is not much to justify the double roles of Dabloo and Babloo, as twins. Since there is no serious confusion regarding their separate identities, the two could just as well have been normal brothers. To play their roles, as adults, he has chosen Aaishvary Thackeray, son of Smita Thackeray. She was the President of the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) from 2001 to 2003. Smita is the owner of Rahul Productions, named after her elder son. Rahul and Aishvary graduated from American School of Bombay. Rahul went on to graduate from Toronto Film School as well, and is currently a Marathi and Hindi film writer/director and film-maker. Aaishvary makes a double debut, and does not disappoint, bringing out the separate nuances of the twins effectively. Vedika Pinto (Operation Romeo, Gumraah) as Rinku is uninhibited, with an indulgent smile. In Monika Panwar (Manjari), Anurag has a talent-house. If he was looking for an actress in the late Nutan mould, he has found one. And in Vineet Kumar Singh, he has an impressive Jabardast.
Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub makes easy work of the ruthless, on-the-take, cop. Kumud Mishra, playing Ambika, has his permanent sneer under control most of the time, but is made to play the underdog in the scene when he is confronted with a possessed Manjari, full of fire and brimstone. Rajesh Kumar as Bhola looks the part but mumbles his dialogue. Is he supposed to be chewing ‘gutkha’ or ‘paan masala’? As the young twins, Nitpreet Gorkhyal and Supreet Gorkhyal have blank countenances, often with dark glasses, and merely go through the motions.
Sylvester Fonseca’s cinematography captures some good brown tones, to give the film a rustic feel. Aarti Bajaj must have had a testing time editing the film, considering the recurring change of tracks. Even at 177 minutes, it leaves some holes unplugged. There are more than a dozen songs, most of them catchy. ‘Yeh filam dekho’ includes the names of Manto, Ghalib, Meer and Khusro. ‘Saram lagela’ has the requisite sexy feel and matching lyrics. Anurag Kashyap closes the film at a stage that could see it metamorphose into a plot reminding us of Manzilen Aur Bhi Hain, Mahesh Bhatt’s first film as director, which, in turn, was inspired by an American film.
Nishanchi aims at multiple targets. It hits some, misses some.
Rating: ** ½
Trailer: https://youtu.be/QKem0b7Q40I
Watch this space for Jolly LL.B. 3 and Homebound.
