Anurag Kashyap attempts a return to form with Nishaanchi. The film — with a title that translates roughly to a ‘slingshot sniper’ — is not only a throwback to the director’s audacious, gritty, earthy style of filmmaking but is also an ode to the kind of films that Kashyap — a knee-high movie buff from small-town Gorakhpur — grew up watching.
Kashyap marries the raw gangsterism of some of his most seminal films — Satya and Shool (which he wrote) to Black Friday and Gangs of Wasseypur (that he directed) — to the elements of Hindi cinema, both mainstream and parallel, that were rampant in the 1970s and ’80s. Many of them may have been stereotypes, but they also formed and subsequently defined the pop-cultural fabric of the cinema of that era.
The most common trope from the films of that time is perhaps that of identical twins. Like Seeta Aur Geeta and Ram Aur Shyam, there is little by way of facial features that separates Babloo and Dabloo (both played with confidence by debutant Aaishvary Thackeray). But in terms of attitude and aspiration, the brothers are as different as chalk and cheese. Babloo, who lands up in jail as a juvenile after (partly) avenging the brutal murder of his father (Viineet Kumar Singh features in an extended cameo), is sharp and street smart. During his time in prison, he takes on the name ‘Tony Mantena’ after Al Pacino’s legendary character Tony Montana from Scarface. Mantena even has a self-inflicted scar on his cheek to justify the same.
Dabloo, whose perennially buttoned-up shirts and timid stance are a dead giveaway of his character, plays second fiddle to his brother, who, after all, needs to be obeyed (Dabloo’s words, not ours) because he is 10 minutes older. Together, the two pull off small-scale heists in Kanpur, with Babloo’s girlfriend Rinku, a feisty dancer played with strong screen presence by Vedika Pinto. But when Babloo lands up in jail once more, things go awry and the power dynamic changes, with Dabloo not content anymore to blend into the scenery. Nor let go of Rinku.
The thread that holds the brothers together — think everything from Mother India to Deewaar — is their mother Manjari. Monika Pawar, at 31, plays mother to 30-year-old Aaishvary, and while the former has always proved herself as a laudable talent (Khauff earlier this year, Nishaanchi now), this is a case of casting, inspired or otherwise, that we can’t wrap our heads around. Manjari, however, is no Nirupa Roy. Armed with spunk and the ability to gauge the difference between allies and adversaries immediately, she attempts to keep her sons shielded from Ambika (Kumud Mishra), an Iago-inspired player whose slimy smile isn’t able to hide his slimy intentions.
While there is a lot to commend in Nishaanchi — the attention to dialect and body language, the confident performances, the authentic locations, Sylvester Fonseca’s exquisite camerawork and Anurag Saikia and Dhruv Ghanekar’s quirky music — Kashyap’s retread into the genre that earned him his filmmaking stripes, unfortunately, cannot be padded up beyond its initial one-line idea.
The film packs in a lot — and says it well for the most part (with Kashyap at the helm, we expect no less) — but Nishaanchi has little to say beyond the standard tale of revenge and retribution, betrayal and bloodshed, fractured relationships and the friends-turned-foes dynamic. Almost everything that you see in Nishaanchi elicits a feeling of deja vu. We have, of course, seen it done earlier and watched it done better — in an Anurag Kashyap film itself.
While Nishaanchi maintains a brisk pace — Aarti Bajaj’s editing skills rarely fail — the film’s long runtime is a definite downer. Four minutes short of three hours is a strict no-no at a time when even a one-minute Instagram Reel feels too long to spend time on. By the time you stumble towards the end, you realise the film doesn’t have a denouement — there is Part 2 in the offing.
Apart from Gangs of Wasseypur, my favourite gangster film written/ directed by Anurag Kashyap is... Tell t2@abp.in
