When Gulaab Gang had released, I had two reasons to watch
it. One, Madhuri Dixit was returning to the big screen after a long hiatus (and
that too, in a completely different sort of role). Two, the director of the film (who is the
writer and composer as well) is a ‘social media friend’. But as luck would have
it, I was caught up in a terribly busy period at work when the film released and
could not catch it in the theatres.
Nearly two years after the film released, I finally managed
to catch it a couple of days back on TV. Watching a film is never as good as
watching it in the theatres – thanks to all the breaks – but I recorded it and
watched it in one go.
I liked the film a lot, principally because it was a
throwback to that old style of Hindi cinema where the good and evil clash in a
series of epic battles before evil is vanquished in a volcano of blood and
gore. We have seen Amitabh or Dharmendra play the oppressed villager so many times
to Amrish Puri or Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s evil politician and yet, a well-made
repeat of those plots still manages to engage.
Gulaab Gang, of course, has that brilliant twist in the cast
by having Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla in the traditionally male roles. And
that works superbly for most part of the film.
What happens really well in the film is the flow of
whistle-inducing dialogues. Both the actresses – though Madhuri a bit more, for
obvious reasons – have the most kickass lines. The "Danda sabka peer hai" (Rod
is God!) line was promoted a lot in the trailers and that is just one of the
many great lines in the film. I particularly liked Madhuri Dixit’s “Uparwali jab deti hai toh chhappad phaadke deti hai… neechewali jab
leti hai toh patloon phaadke leti hai” line. Good enough for me to have
remembered it from two days back J
Apart from the dialogues, the action set-pieces of the film
are really well done – more so, because women were doing all the action scenes.
So Madhuri Dixit and her gang deliver some butt-clenchingly good action. The power
with which the sickles dug into the flesh gave me the cringes many times in the
film!
Madhuri’s entrance scene and its buildup is one of the best
that I can remember in recent time, heroes included – really setting her up for
a great role. Even the scene in which Juhi Chawla leaves the building to greet
a waiting crowd only to be upstaged by a regal Madhuri Dixit behind her is masterfully
done.
What didn’t work me was the placement of songs. They really hampered the flow of
the story and I was impatiently waiting for the film to get on whenever the songs happened.
At the time of the release, I was a bit disappointed to see
the not-so-positive reviews of the film though many of them praised Juhi Chawla’s
performance as the one to watch out for. I was rather underwhelmed by her performance
as – to me – she did not manage to break completely free of her super-sweet
image and become the evil politician on screen. She had some great lines but
she just didn’t convey the menace the character was supposed to.
But nevertheless, Gulaab Gang was a really entertaining
watch because it got the essence of old-school Bollywood really well. The
dhamaka dialogues, the kaante ka takkar, the swishing sickles, the
larger-than-life leads, the eye-candy heroines… oh wait!
[Frivolous Footnote: Wondering how Sridevi would have been in
Juhi Chawla’s role. She does over-the-top acts really well. She has a natural
sneer. (Or is it a snarl?) And her rivalry with Madhuri has a jagged edge that
Juhi’s rivalry probably never had. Hmmm...]
Comments