'She betrayed
him the moment she fell in love with him’
reads the tagline for Anurag Basu’s film
Gangster. Chartbuster songs, a love story
promoted as being inspired by the infamous Abu
Salem-Monica Bedi affair and then denial of the
same, TV promos promising a fair amount of flesh
and Vishesh Films’ expert kisser Emran Hashmi;
there are enough factors put in to pull the crowds.
Despite all that, there was also the expectation
of the film actually being a good one as it gets
off to a rousing start.
The story of the film is told in flashback by
the Heroine who is caught between two loves and
between her past and future. The opening scene
is remarkable in the way it sets the tone of the
film. Not wishing to give away the story, I will
only mention here the effect it has and the expectation
it generates.  Over
sounds of heavy rain and thunder the film opens
to a car parked in a typical Bombay street, parking
lights flashing, rain pounding the street. The
first character you meet is the gun. Only after
that do you meet Simran. (An ex-bar girl played
by Kangana Ranaut) She is beautiful and distraught,
model thin and with curly hair that does not look
like a bad wig; and for a change, strangely real.
She walks into a building and shoots a person,
who in return shoots her back. We do not know
yet who she has shot or for what reason. The scene
is predominantly made up of top angle shots which
are very effective in creating a certain ambiguity
about the events here; as when hit by the bullet,
Simran looks up to God as if in complaint and
later again when the murderer and the unknown
murdered are brought in for treatment in adjacent
operating theaters. This scene in fact informs
the audience in a remarkably understated way about
how the protagonists would journey from love to
deceit to betrayal and then to revenge. The film
is structured as a minor jigsaw puzzle which becomes
complete only when the cycle of betrayal comes
full circle.
From the first frame onwards, gangster
is the doomed love story of Daya (Shiney Ahuja),
an infamous Bombay mobster. Simran (Kangana Ranaut)
is a bar dancer living a simple life in a Bombay
chawl who finds an extraordinary kindness in Daya.
It must be for the kindness that she alone can
see in him that he is named ‘Daya’,
otherwise a terribly inappropriate name for a
Gangster who kills ruthlessly and does
not flinch when facing death. However love is
an accidental impediment that the cold blooded
killer could do without, for now he has begun
to love life. It leads to a fallout with his underworld
boss for whom Daya becomes a liability now. On
the run from the intelligence agencies and his
own gang, Daya sets Simran up in a safe house
in Korea, while he wanders from one country to
the other like a hunted prey. On the other hand,
Simran, burdened with the guilt of innocent blood
of a child, leads a lonely and meaningless life
drinking away till she meets Akash (Emran Hashmi).
A ‘bar singer’ in Korea, Akash gives
Simran a new lease of life. But Daya is not about
to give up the only person he has loved so easily.
And it is love that makes Simran betray herself,
again.
The screenplay is tight, the scenes are lucid
and the story is coherent. Some sequences like
the above mentioned opening scene make the film
rise above the mediocre fare that is dished out
every Friday. Other scenes like the Ya Ali
Madad Ali Qawwali song where Daya confronts
his boss, and the one where Daya and Simran are
on the run, while the soulful Hamari Adhuri
Kahani plays in the background are worth
a second look. Other positives – overall
the music (Preetam) is stirring, the songs inspired.
The look of the film is fresh as the location
is new to Indian screens. The brooding Shiney
Ahuja is good eye candy and Kangana playing Simran
looks stunning. But that is where it stops. And
it is such a shame.
 Shiney
Ahuja and Kangana Ranaut unfortunately can not
act to save their lifes. As long as they are only
meant to brood and look away into the distances,
they do wonderfully well. But somewhere, sometime
they start speaking and ouch! At least Shiney
Ahuja waits till after the interval to start speaking
and even after that is very sparse with dialogues
which stand him well. When Kangana speaks, her
voice grates and her dialogue delivery is listless.
Thus the emotionally intense scenes though well
written fall flat with both main leads either
screaming offensively or crying embarrassingly.
Emran Hashmi as the third point of this triangle,
Akash, does not surprise. He does what is expected
of him, nothing more, nothing less. In other words,
he kisses expertly, is nearly natural in love
but when the script requires something more, he
cannot deliver.
The location is beautiful but sadly wasted.
It ultimately serves as a gorgeous painted backdrop,
but nothing more. Nothing of the soul of the city
has any part in the film. The neon lights, the
golden maple trees are stunning, but to little
effect. Unlike a Yash Raj bubblegum film, where
locations are only meant to dazzle, I had expected
more from such an interesting screenplay. Like
Wong Kar Wai’s Hong Kong that permeates
into the life of his every film. Imagine a foreign
film that is shot in Bombay but has no real sense
of anything that Bombay means or stands for –
it would be criminal.
As I said in the beginning, Gangster
is almost good, but finally not good enough.
Leya Mathew has a Masters in Media and
Communication and currently works in the Film
and TV Industry as Assistant Director.
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