Expectations:
If only Anuraag Kashyap’s debut film’Paanch’ would have released at its scheduled time, our Hindi cinema would have experienced a very bold and dark film with some fantastic performance attached to it.
Though, he did venture back into this dark territory with his film ’No Smoking’ followed by’The Girl In Yellow Boots’. Sadly, none of these films worked at the box office and were penned down by many.
Years later ’No Smoking’ had its individual fan following and is considered as one of the darkest films by Anuraag Kashyap, which is loved by all those cinema lovers who love dark and trippy type of films. Anuraag kept sharing the shades of mild darkness in his other films too, but in a moderate manner.
His ’Gangs Of Wasseypur’ was loved by both, classes and masses. Judging by its success, one did not expect Anuraag to come back with a relatively small and dark film’Ugly’.
The movie managed to raise the eyeballs at the time of its first promo, but due to several reasons got delayed and finally, after a long gap manages to see the light of theatrical release.
So let’s find out whether’Ugly’ will give us an out and out dark thriller as promised by its maker or end up being another pseudo attempt by this creative director satisfying certain sect of cinema lovers only.
Story:
’Ugly’ is story of struggling actor Rahul Kapoor (Rahul Bhat), whose daughter Kali(Anshikaa Shrivastava) gets kidnapped in the busy streets of Mumbai.
Without letting his ex-wife Shalini (Tejaswini Kholhapure) know about the kidnapping, Rahul and his friend Chaitanya (Vineet Singh) seeks the help of the police.
Shalini’s current husband Shoumik Bose (Ronit Roy) is the officer in charge, who feels Rahul and his friend are the ones who have kidnapped Kali.
The blame game keeps continuing and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.
Screenplay & Technicalities:
The story is one liner, but has plenty of layers and is told with lots of interesting happenings associated with it. The writers find a new way of narrating a thrilling tale and succeeds initially, but as the movie progresses the multiple tracks, start to dilute the flow of the film.
Still, scenes like the chase scene, Rahul Bhat lodging a complaint at Girish Kulkarni’s police station, Ronit’s first interaction with Rahul, Girish interrogating Vineet, Rahul and Vineet’s chat in police lock up followed by the powerful climax shot will keep you glued to the silver screen.
If only the makers would have known where to stop with the multiple tracks, the impact would have been great. Lot of scenes are over stretched, whereas few tracks demanded more detailing including the change of heart of Rahul Bhat’s character towards the finale.
One can ignore few other open ended tracks, but Rahul Bhat being the pillar of the film, needed more explanation and justification.
It seemed like the writers opened up multiple tracks and suddenly kept shutting down every one of them followed by an impactful ending, which as per them might camouflage the negative points and the loopholes connected to the film. The camera work is just fine, nothing extraordinary.
Editing should have been crispier and direct to the point.
Direction:
Director Anuraag Kashyap, narrates an interesting and shocking tale which could have been told in a routine manner, instead, he prefers to narrate it in a nonlinear manner with showing the dark side of all the characters associated with the film.
He keeps wandering a bit in some parts of the film and indulges few unwanted tracks, but on an overall basis, sums it up with a dark climax.
Performances:
Rahul Bhat makes a great comeback and shines out in the emotional scenes. If only his character would have been properly justified in the finale portions the end results would have been more encouraging. Ronit Roy is tough and powerful.
He does full justice to his role and adds the much needed coldness in his character. Girish Kulkarni and Vineet Singh have good scenes to display their talent. Tejaswini Kolhapure was fine in her part.
Siddhant Kapoor and Surveen Chawla are under used. Anshika does her part with grace. Alia Bhatt in a blink and miss appearance looked cute.
Final Verdict: So bol meri "FILMI KHOPDI" iss film mein kitna hain Dum?:
Dum? Well, all the Anuraag Kashyap die hard fans along with the ones who love dark and good cinema will definitely love the uglier side of human drama.
The darkness, curiosity and performances will keep you engaged throughout the film leading to a hard hitting climax. The ones expecting a lot from their cinematic god (Anuraag Kashyap), might end up getting a bit disappointed as they might hardly find anything new or powerful to cherish their worshiping.
The popular cinema lovers would prefer to stay miles away from this type of cinema. The brand name of Anuraag Kashyap is much bigger than the small product like’Ugly’, due to which it ends up being less distressing in terms of a dark thriller.