Bangistan: Potent idea, poor execution

August 07, 2015 09:37 pm | Updated March 29, 2016 02:00 pm IST

08dmc bangistan

08dmc bangistan

Genre: Comedy/ Drama

Director: Karan Anshuman

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat, Jacqueline Fernandez, Kumud Mishra, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Aryan Babbar, Tom Alter, Shiv Subramanium

Sometimes right ingredients don’t amount to a delectable dish. Debutant Karan Anshuman’s exercise to make the young audience grapple with the consequences of religious divide rather than indulging in a romantic comedy is one such case. The intentions are cool but the final result leaves us in the cold.

Karan has thought of a fictional island called Bangistan where Hindus and Muslims are fighting for dominance. As expected there are two kinds of leaders. The moderate theologians who want to make a point about communal amity at a global conference in Poland and the extreme opportunists who want to indulge in politics of fear. Karan’s protagonists Praveen (Pulkit Samrat) and Hafiz (Riteish Deshmukh) somehow follow the latter variety. As they are sent to Poland to bomb the conference, the narrative gets its life.

Praveen disguises as a Muslim and Hafeez dresses up as a Hindu and in the process understand the nuances of the each other’s religion. If Praveen gets to know the true meaning of sacrifice, Hafeez realises the value of Karma over Dharma. At one point Praveen says he went to a school where there was no student of another religion. The film makes a point that we should come out of our cocoons to appreciate the plurality of faith.

However, the way Karan goes about it is rather trite and uninteresting. He keeps on underlining the same thing over and over again. It might have sounded compelling on paper but on screen it comes across as either puerile or repetitive. The airport scene where the two are undressed to boxers by Polish security treats a moot point in slapstick fashion.

There are islands of unalloyed fun and then long, laboured obvious lessons in communal amity. The contrast of how the shadow of American way of life is palpable yet they still hate the Americans comes across well. Similarly, when the two go for bomb shopping, Karan opens a window to the current geopolitics in a humorous way.

However, the motivations and the change in the characters are too simplistic to make you feel for them. There is no dialogue between the moderates and extremists in Bangistan. Once the film introduces us to the central conceit, you always know where it is headed. It seems the writers are running away from conflict and are busy ticking boxes. From Citizen Kane to Taxi Driver , Karan nods at various classics to generate humour but the results remain tepid. And when the climax is reduced to a preachy session, one clutches the arm rest and looks for divine help!

Riteish is once again earnest but underutilised. Pulkit shows flashes of brilliance when he copies Salman Khan in the opening sequence but after that he becomes a one note character.

The reliable Kumud Mishra and Chandan Roy are reduced to caricatures and Jacqueline Fernandez appears in a thankless one-song-four-scene kind of appearance. But ultimately it is not about performances, it is the uneven writing and ham-fisted treatment that lets this potent idea down.

Try it on television.

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