Movie Review: Zed Plus,Review: Ungli begins with a bang and that's about it!

Review: Ungli begins with a bang and that's about it!

 
Much as you try to like this film, you end up feeling sad as the Ungli turns limp, says Prasanna D Zore.

Director Rensil D’Silva and dialogue writer Milap Zaveri team up to dish out an inane thriller that lacks originality as well as a solid plot.
Ungli is about four friends -- Abhay (Randeep Hooda), Maya (Kangna Ranaut), Kaleem (Angad Bedi) and Gautam alias Goti (Neil Bhoopalam) -- and their brave attempt to clean the system of corruption in their unique vigilante style.
The friends are united by a tragedy that befalls their friend Rajeev (Arunoday Singh).
That makes them wear masks, roam the streets of Mumbai at night, kidnap corrupt officials in a van, video tape their acts of wrongdoing and send the tapes to news channels to expose the system and change it for the larger good.
In the process, they become known as the Ungli gang.
D’Silva does try to inject a sense of thrill by introducing Sanjay Dutt as ACP Ashok Kale (who his immediate superior calls ‘Kali’; what an effort to convey that the superior doesn’t know the local dialect!), who in turn seeks help from Nikhil Abhyankar (Emraan Hashmi) to arrest the Ungli gang because Abhyankar is one of those cops who thinks like a criminal.
But that’s about it.
The plot turns flaccid, banal and as straight as your ungli once Abhyankar infiltrates the gang.
One expects a cat-and-mouse game to follow this development, some twists and turns to make you reach the edge of your seat, but you end up feeling disappointed.
The gang sets about to clean the system and does it without any hiccups.
One must make special mention of Zaveri’s dialogues. Nobody can beat this hilarious ‘Aansoo-on se sirf whiskey dilute hoti hai’ as Abhyankar sets about encouraging Kale to take the fight against corruption to its logical end.
Of the cast, only Randeep Hooda shows some guts and style in essaying the role of a crime reporter-turned-system-cleaner but his ungli (I mean effort) falls flat as they go about exposing corrupt pension officials, traffic police and the wheeler-dealers who broker police transfers for a fee.
There is not much to comment on Neha Dhupia’s role as a television anchor-cum reporter who first takes the initiative to scoop the details about the Ungli gang and later whimpers that her boss yells at her because she has failed to make any inroads. So much for characterisation!
The worst part of Ungli is the way the climax unfolds.
The vigilantes go about exposing the Dayals -- Mahesh Manjrekar and his son Rajat Kaul -- without the latter doing any ungli to repulse the four friends. The scene just begins and ends in a blink-and-you-miss moment!
Ungli begins with a bang and that’s about it!

Movie Review: Zed Plus

Director: Chandra Prakash Dwivedi
Cast: Adil Hussain, Mona Singh, Mukesh Tiwari, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Sanjay Mishra and K K Raina

Comedy is hard, satire is harder. To make a film that not only tickles your funny bone but also makes you take a long look at the state of Bharat is a rarity. Kudos to director Chandra Prakash Dwivedi for attempting that. I said Bharat and not India because we actually have two countries residing in one. India – exemplified by the shiny glass and metal towers sprouting in the metros and Bharat -- the small town and villages that have yet to receive the trickledown effect of the so-called vibrant economy. Where the common man speaks in a language that is far different from the Oxbridge accents heard in the corridors of power.

The real tragedy of this Bharat is that those in power haven’t bothered to learn its ground reality. There is a communication gap so wide you can park the whole Grand Canyon in it and still have place for more. This point is emphatically brought to light through this satire.

A common ‘puncturewala’ (Adil Hussain) gets to meet the kind-hearted but clueless PM (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), who misinterprets his complaint against a nosy neighbour (Mukesh Tiwari) as a plea for help against the Pakis. In a fit of philanthropy, the PM orders that the lowly villager be given zed plus security. What follows is a set of misadventures that puncture the socio-political reality of our country.

You are in for a treat if you forgive this rather silly premise. Writers Ramkumar Singh and Chandra Prakash Dwivedi have created a vivid picture of a vibrant village society, where everyone knows each other inside out.  The film was shot entirely on location in Mandawa, a heritage village near Jaipur and hence the milieu feels authentic. The look of the actors too is real and not the uber villager get up that we see in big budget masala entertainers. The dialogue hit home with their earthy humour. It was nice to hear idioms after a long, long time in films.

Acting too is spot on. Adil Hussain charms as the humble mechanic, bedazzled by circumstances. Mona Singh is apt as his stoic wife, Mukesh Tiwari clicks as his more well-to-do neighbour and KK Raina excels as the prime minister’s personal secretary who doesn’t care for the democracy and is only interested in increasing his master’s political reach.

Our politicians refuse to see people and situations for what they are but callously use them as means to achieve political ends. The strength of the film lies in bringing home this rather grim truth in a light-hearted vein. The laughs don’t come through toilet humour or through slapstick but are driven by situations that seem plausible. This fact alone makes it a paisa vasool film.