Nishaanchi Review: Anurag Kashyap, Aaishvary Thackeray's Gangs Of Wasseypur-Esque Film Is A Love Letter To Bollywood

Nishaanchi Movie Review: Doppelgänger twins. One is naïve and timid. Brother number two is a street-smart outlaw. They’ve a common love interest. And then there’s one Mother India. One deshbhakti song. A corrupt policeman. An even more corrupt and ruthless antagonist. Too many betrayals. Too many revenge games. And a pulsating background score. Feeling nostalgic? Well, the good news is that you don’t need to revisit the glorious and gregarious masala actioners and spaghetti westerns of the seventies and the eighties. Because Anurag Kashyap’s Nishaanchi has just been released.

If you were anticipating a third Gangs Of Wasseypur, go and watch Nishaanchi. It has a heavy hangover of the former. In a way, Anurag has paid a homage to his most successful

work with his latest work. And in a scene in Nishaanchi, a character says, ‘Bollywood ke bina kauno jindagi kaise jiye?’ And that perfectly sums up the film. This is Bollywood in all its glory. This is a love letter, a true-blue tribute to Bollywood – not Hindi cinema. It’s riveting, it’s charming, it’s chaotic, it’s fun, it’s vintage, it’s Bollywood!

Nishaanchi opens in Kanpur of 2006. The introduction montage gives us a local essence of the town – narrow alleyways and above them a tangle of crisscrossed electric cables with Azan playing in the background. It cuts to a chole-kachori stall and the music shifts to a Bollywood number playing on the radio. Without wasting any time, Anurag introduces us to Dabloo, threatening a bank manager to let him break in. Wearing a pair of sunglasses and a balaclava, he nervously reads out the threat message from a piece of paper.

It states that if he doesn’t oblige, he’ll be reduced to a can of tobacco. Neither do we nor the characters in the film know what that means. But we laugh. And that perfectly sets the tone and mood of the narrative. It’s wildly chaotic, even riotous. There’s almost always an impending pandemonium in the vicinity. And yet, there’s a method to this madness. Coming back to the plot, Dabloo is soon joined by his twin brother Babloo, who now calls himself Toni Mantena, to rob the bank. But inspector Kalam reaches there and catches Babloo.

And he’s sentenced to seven years in jail. It’s then revealed that he spent his adolescent years in prison too. This gang of robbers, consisting of the brothers, has a third member – Rangeeli Rinku known as ‘Kanpur ki item bomb’, who reminds you of Sapna Chaudhary. She’s a dancer at a local pub frequented by married men. Once Babloo goes to jail and Rinku is forced to leave her family home after being threatened by Ambika Prasad, she starts staying with Dabloo and his mother, Manjari. But Manjari has a long-standing rivalry with Ambika.

In an elaborate flashback sequence, we learn that Manjiri’s husband Jabardast and Ambika were friends. But circumstances led Ambika to show his true colours. He licentiously tried to woo Manjiri and she ended up throwing him out of the house. Years later, Babloo starts working with Ambika and becomes his right-hand, unaware of the fact that he had a role to play in his father’s death. When Babloo commits his first murder as a pre-teen, it was under the tutelage of Ambika.

A series of events involving another murder and intimidation, however, led Ambika and Babloo to become nemeses. Yes, Nishaanchi is a saga of a bunch of blood-thirsty, impulsive men who are goons. But the film also stands out for its women – Manjiri and Rinku. Once a shooter, Manjiri is a modern-day feminist and comeback queen. She doesn’t think twice before taking her son to a cop after he admits to committing a murder. She protects her son’s lover even if that means danger. She calls out Ambika and his perversion with words laced with expletives.

She teaches her children to use a slingshot. She becomes the breadwinner of the film. She’s tough, resolute and uninhibited. Rinku, in the same way, isn’t afraid to ask for what she wants. She embraces her sensuality, doesn’t think twice before breaking bottles on men ogling her and initiates foreplay. She teaches Babloo how to kiss and it makes for one of the most memorable scenes in the film. When she asks, ‘Behek rahe ho’, he replies, ‘dehek raha hoon’. And this time around, Anurag has set a new precedent for himself. His women aren’t just emotionally strong entities hurling abuses. They work too.

At 2 hours 56 minutes, you may feel that Nishaanchi is losing its pace in bits and parts, and yet manages to keep you hooked for the most part. It’s packed with moments so funny and entertaining that you’ll find yourself cracking up every now and then. Like Gangs Of Wasseypur, Nishaanchi too relies on situational humour (there’s a sign that states ‘this is a mango road’) and typical Kanpuri twang to evoke chuckles. There are so many of such moments that it would be unfair to pick one. And what further up the film’s humour quotient are its songs.

There’s a track called Dear Country that’s written earnestly but also so riotously that you won’t be able to hold yourself together. Another track called Raja Hindustani is an amalgamation of film titles. It’s absurd but oh, so amusing! In fact, references are made to popular Hindi film titles many times. In a scene, Babloo worries if his love story will be like Mughal-e-Azam or Hum Aapke Hai Koun but then pacifies himself saying that both were blockbusters. In another, he tells Rinku that he learnt how to kiss a girl from Raja Hindustani. In yet another, he shoots down a man to the beats of Dhina Dhin Dha from My Name Is Lakhan.

Anurag’s fascination for bizarre names continue with Nishaanchi. If Gangs Of Wasseypur had Perpendicular, Definite and Tangent, this one has Purana, Ajeeb, Jabardast, Lehsun and Hawa Hawaii. Nishaanchi deserves a watch for many reasons but a key one is its texture. It’s so rooted in the heartland that it smells of Kanpur. The colour schemes and the cinematography deserve a mention. And we get a generous taste of the same in the Filam Dekho title card sequence. The visuals are colourful, bold, edgy, playful, irreverent – immediately positioning you in the world of Nishaanchi.

This is one of those rare films that has a stronger second half. It’s the flashback sequence in the first half featuring Jabardast and Manjiri that steals the thunder from Babloo, Rinku and Dabloo. The screenplay splashed with rustic cinematic vibes and colloquial touches is elevated by some incredible performances by the cast. Aaishvary Thackeray is a surprise package. He plays both Babloo and Dabloo effortlessly, like a seasoned actor. Through his performance, he highlights the distinction between these starkly contrasting characters and hits it out of the park with each scene.

A complete package, he has an impeccable comic timing and is an ace performer, hitting the right notes even in the dramatic scenes with utmost conviction. His vulnerability, his fierceness will pierce you. But this is no one-man’s show. Monika Panwar deserves the loudest cheer, sometimes reminding you of Richa Chadha’s Nagma Khatoon in Gangs Of Wasseypur. She brings a rare restraint to the table and grasps the body language of a middle-aged woman with finesse. When she’s onscreen, she truly commands your attention.

Vedika Pinto as Rinku is impressive too. She’s refreshing. She shuns the sheen and lets her raw performance do all the talking. The innocence in her eyes becomes her biggest weapon and she stands out for her old-world Bollywood charm. Viineet Kumar Siingh in his cameo as Jabardast is unmissable. He takes the film several notches higher by sinking so deep into his character that you won’t be able to differentiate Viineet from Jabardast. Kumud Mishra plays antagonist Ambika with an envious and admirable thehrav.

Nishaanchi is not a story. It’s a swagger-soaked saga. It’s rough-edged, earthy, delirious and unapologetically bizarre and revels in its maximalism. It has anarchy written all over it. In its own warped way, it’s a reflection of the land it comes from – not always prim but bustling with character and chutzpah, impossible to look away from. And you won’t miss Sneha Khanwilkar because Anurag Saikia, Manan Bharadwaj and Dhruv Ghanekar have built a soundscape that’s rich in folk, funk and filmi-ness. Is Nishaanchi as good as Gangs Of Wasseypur? Is Anurag Kashyap back? ‘Filam Dekho’ and find out.