Gulaal - Thought provoking and Disturbing

Anurag Kashyap definitely has a style of story telling and abstract seems to be his favourite kind. Although Gulaal is no Black Friday, but it has to be one of Anurag Kashyap's finest work. Its like a little jigsaw puzzle which unfolds as pieces fit into place one by one. Gulaal is not the kind of movie that would appeal to everyone. Its not the type of movie where you sit with a bag of popcorn to enjoy and relax. Its a movie with a message. Neither is it a kind of a movie where in you can leave the room for an odd minute or two and then understand the on-going after coming back.

Gulaal has multiple threads running at one time and Anurag Kashyap tries to unearth many issues in one movie. There is the student politics, along with hard core ragging. In its parallel runs a fight for a separate state and on another totally different track runs a love triangle. A drawback of this scheme is that it makes the movie very confusing at times.

Dilip Singh, played by Raja Choudhary, comes to Jaipur for his higher education and meets the rest of the characters in the process. His room mate Ran Sa (Abhimanyu Singh), is an easy going, good for nothing rich kid. Unhappy with his room mate Dilip goes in search of an hostel and gets badly ragged. He meets Anuja there, played by Jesse Randhava, who also undergoes ragging of the top degree. When Ran Sa comes to know about this he urges Dilip to take revenge. They go for help to Dukki Banna ( Kay Kay Menon) as he is one of the royal bloods and has a huge clout.

Impressed by Ran Sa's heroics, in proving his Rajput blood by taking revenge, Dukki Banna urges him to stand for the GS elections. Ran Sa's main rival in the elections is Kiran (Ayesha Mohan). Kiran is backed strongly by her brother Karan (Aditya Shrivastav, better known as Inspector Abhijeet from CID for us commoners). Karan and Kiran are Ran Sa's illegal step siblings whose sole motive is to gain their father's name in public.

Ran Sa gets killed in the process of fighting the elections and Dukki Banna decides to put up Dilip in his place to get sympathy votes. Dilip wins the election and from there on starts his downfall. Kiran allures him into sleeping with him and makes him fall in love with him. Dilip starts defying Dukki Banna under Kiran's influence. Dukki Banna tries to show Dilip that his vision is bigger than just student elections. His main aim is to free Rajputs and fight for a separate state of Rajputaana and college elections is a way of raising money for his freedom struggle.

What happens next is for you to find out. Will Dilip understand Anuja's true love and Kiran's machinations? Will Karan and Kiran finally get recognized by their father's name in public?

The major drawback of this movie is that it runs in parallel over many issues and gets confusing at times. Also some of the issues could have been an individual movie in their own right and hence one feels that it was not given enough footage. There are too many characters in the movie who have no significance. Jesse Randhava's character and her angle could have totally been left out. Mahie Gill is wasted. Dukki Banna's elder brother's angle is totally abstract and one doesnt know why it is there.

On the positives, this film tackles with a lot of the social issues that still exist in India. The influence of rich people, the weakness of the police force in such areas of the country, the ragging and student politics. All these aspects make the movie an intriguing watch.

The music is not at all inspiring and if it would not have taken the story forward one would not have watched the songs. Some of the lyrics are well written though.

Acting wise the entire ensemble has done a tremendous job. Kay Kay leads the pack once again with his impressive performance. Aditya Shrivastav (Inspector Abhijeet) is outstanding but should have got more footage. Raja Choudhary, Ayesha Mohan are good. Abhimanyu Singh and Deepak Dobriyal are outstanding in their cameos.

Raja Choudhary doubles up as a writer and does a decent job. Anurag Kashyap is top notch in his direction. A tighter script and better ediing could have done the film a world of good.

Rating: **1/2 (One time watch)