Nishaanchi movie review: Watered down and tepid, Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Kanpur lacks verve

In Nishaanchi, which can quite easily be dubbed the ‘Gangs of Kanpur’, a version of it comes up again during a husband-wife banter. But it comes off watered-down, not leaping off the screen like it did before. And if I were to encapsulate my feelings for Nischaanchi in one line, it would be exactly this: Nishaanchi is watered-down and tepid, with none of the crackling energy and verve that Kashyap packed in GOW part one and two, making the double-bill, especially the first, a film for the ages.

GOW’s weight came from the fact that it was tethered to a time and place, revolving around the coal mining and mafia which had a long history in the region. That crucial element is missing in most of ‘Nishaanchi’: we never really know why it is set around twenty years back from now (2006), with some bits going back further. Scruffy-looking identical twins Dabloo and Babloo (Aishwary Thackeray in a double role) show up in a car with an increasingly-worried Rinku (Vedika Pinto) early one morning: they are parked in front of a bank, and a heist is soon in progress.

In the nearly-three hours that follow, the whys and wherefores emerge, taking their time. The boys’ mother, a very young-looking Manjari (Monika Panwar) has raised them with great difficulty after father Jabardast Singh (Vineet Kumar Singh) exits the scene: the latter is a naive wrestler, who doesn’t know how to play the game outside the akhada in order to climb the power rungs, relying upon his feisty wife who shoots straight from the hip, as well as constant companion Ambika Prasad (Girish Sharma/ Kumud Mishra) who becomes a fixture in their lives, and a cop (Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub) who is a witness to the goings-on.

The fact that the hot-headed Babloo is an ace nishanchi — first a gulel, then a gun — becomes his calling card; the softer, gentler younger-by-ten-minutes Dabloo attempts at a balance, even as the former becomes part of a gang which is trying to muscle in on land-for-malls. Prison stints, scuffling prisoners, killings, shoot-outs, make-outs, are all part of the plot, but nothing really stands out, not even when the ‘judwa bhais’ begin circling around ‘rangeeli’ Rinku.

Watch Nishanchi movie trailer:

The best of Kashyap has always included scenes and situations which go for the jugular, no waffling, no wasting time, but in this one, you are hard put to find those that will be stayers. The relationship between the excellent Panwar and Singh, which includes lashings of the kind of grown-up passion that Kashyap is so good at creating, is the highlight of the film, even if Manjari’s character feels like a combination of the ones played by Richa Chadha- Huma Qureshi in GOW, what with Manjari bringing up ‘permission’, making you flash back to that memorable scene in which Nawaz and Qureshi are trying it on: in a small-town crime drama, AK style, how can there not be a scene with a woman on her haunches, by a hand-pump, whatever she is doing, dishes, clothes secondary to barely-veiled lust? And also, how can there not be a profusion of goons trying hard to be stylish, going by the name of Phlunky, Puraane, Hawa Hawaai: a baba called Lasan, with a black tilak across his forehead shows up briefly, too.

Crime dramas are a zone the director had sworn never to return to, post GOW. But here he is again, and the way he stacks up his ensemble shows that this is where he is most comfortable. The trouble is that Aishwary Thackeray, who gets the most screen time, is earnest but not impactful. With the exception of some intermittent bump-ups, you are left looking for zing. And this is only the first part: will the follow-up be sharper, swifter, and will the old AK be back in the reckoning?

Nishaanchi movie cast: Aishvary Thackeray, Monika Panwar, Vedika Pinto, Kumud Mishra, Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub, Vineet Kumar Singh
Nishaanchi movie director: Anurag Kashyap
Nishaanchi movie rating: 2.5 stars

From the homepage

US revoked visas of Indian business executives over link to fentanyl trade: Embassy

‘I respect all religions’: CJI Gavai on critical social media posts over his comments in Khajuraho case

France’s Macron to submit ‘photographic, scientific evidence’ that wife Brigitte is a woman