Post 1972 India-Pak war, India humiliated Pakistan and the outcome was liberation of East Pakistan, which is now called as Bangladesh. Two orphans are sent to a Refugee camp in Bangladesh where they get shelter and food in return for (working) smuggling guns. Gunday – film review
The kids – Bikram and Bala are exploited by the gun dealer and now there is a child molester wanting to keep one of them as his slave. The boys sense trouble and escape from there, flee to the other side of the border and arrive in Calcutta, India. Kolkatta was then named as Calcutta.
Bikram and Bala start their livelihood by working in a small restaurant for some time, where the owner humiliates them, referring to them as ‘refugees’. They get into a fight with him and leave his employment.
Now they get into looting small quantities of coal, while it is routinely transported in trains. Their confidence grows up as time passes by and now they begin looting open containers and at times the full train loaded with coal.
They have grown up as adults and now Bikram (Ranveer Singh) and Bala (Arjun Kapoor) have managed to get a ration card and now they can move around proudly, calling themselves as Indians.
Soft at heart they provide work to the unemployed, help the poor and are called as Robin Hoods. The guys fall for the same woman – Nandita (Priyanka Chopra), a well know cabaret dancer in the whole of Calcutta.
A.C.P. Satyajeet Sarkar (Irfan Khan) is summoned to Kolkata to catch Bikram and Bala. The friends are madly in love with the cabaret dancer, and things get complicated then onwards. One of them has to flee the city and other is in close touch with Nandita.
Things take a twist and turn towards the end. The film is a bit over stretched here onwards.
Gunday is about the deep bonding between two guys who have faced crises and insecurities all through their childhood and then struggled for gaining a foothold in India. The friends are thrilled at merely getting the ration card issued in their names and then on they take the local mafia and become dons of the underworld in this eastern part of India.
Priyanka Chopra is the one who shines in this film. She is cute and looks hot in her songs and dances. She is the only one who appears realistic and performs her part flawlessly. Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor are too loud at times. They appear to be a bit more filmy in their characters. Irfan Khan is wasted in this film.
The most impressive work is that of child actors Darshan Gurjar and Jayesh Kardak who enact the characters of young Bikram and Bala.
Gunday has some brilliant cinematography, and much to the credit of the art department, Kolkata of the 1970s and 1980s is perfectly presented on screen.
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Cast:
Ranveer Singh as Bikram
Arjun Kapoor as Bala
Darshan Gurjar as young Bikram
Jayesh V. Kardak as young Bala
Priyanka Chopra as Nandita
Irrfan Khan as A.C.P. Satyajeet Sarkar
Saurabh Shukla as Kaali Kaka
Pankaj Tripathi as Lateef
Anant Sharma as Himanshu
Credits:
Studio – Yash Raj Films
Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar
Produced by Aditya Chopra
Narrated by Irrfan Khan
Music by Sohail Sen
Background Score: Julius Packiam
Cinematography Aseem Mishra
Editing by Rameshwar S. Bhagat
Gunday – film review