Before moving into the review, I would like to give you the story behind this latest Anurag Kashyap film, UGLY, post the mediocre UNGLI and FUGLY having confusingly rhyming names. Ready long before these two films, UGLY made into Cannes and other festivals around the world early last year and got some extreme mixed reviews from many reputed names. So for records, it was not any unanimous applause received by the film which was largely being speculated & discussed here at the social media before its release. Perhaps this has become another norm of promoting the films here in India, when it comes to off-beat cinema not exactly targeting the masses.
Anyway even after its completion, the film could not release for so long due to probably more than one reason including Kashyap’s fight against the compulsory insertion of “Statuary Smoking Warning” with the Censors. But since the torrent of the film was reportedly out before its official release and the court case also failed to deliver the desired results, UGLY was planned to be released just one week post PK since many a times only one choice of new film in the theaters, apart from the bigger one, does bring in the viewer trying the odd one out. Moreover since Kashyap no doubt has his own fan following among the selected audience, therefore it was quite wise of them to release the film around the festival weekend this Friday.
Coming on to the review, I frankly found myself standing among those who couldn’t find it as brilliant as was being raved about since long and enjoyed it only as an above average thriller featuring a director’s personal indulgence more than anything else. For instance, discuss it with a viewer or read any review in the media, they all would emphasize on three major points of the movie unarguably in the exact sequence mentioned below.
First, it has to be the 8-10 minutes long sequence of Police Station when a puzzled father and his friend is there reporting a missing girl child conversing with the station officer. The scene is surely one of the best interpretations of real life situations on the screen in the recent times superbly played by Girish Kulkarni as the ignorant inspector weirdly chatting about mobiles, computers and incoming call pictures instead of writing a complaint. And the way his attitude changes knowing that its about the step daughter of his own senior officer, simply points towards the questionable functioning of our police and their rude behavior.
Second comes the final shot of the film, revealing the cruel ugliness behind the mystery shaking you real hard as it has never been so brutal on the Indian screen before, in any ‘crime thriller’ or ‘who done it’ movie to be straight. In fact such is the jaw dropping impact of this particular aerial shot that it doesn’t let you ponder back on the entire film catching its various flaws and one comes out of theater pretty impressed recovering from the unexpected shock received all of a sudden.
The third common point in any view or review would be the worth praising realistic performances by almost the entire cast led by Tejasvini Kolhapure from the front along with Ronit Roy and Rahul Bhatt. The supporting cast plays its own important role worth noticing in the tense proceedings. Still despite Ronit’s flawless portrayal, he plays nothing fresh and now sadly is being offered the same roles of an angry father/officer one after another by our talented film-makers following the sick, ages-old pattern of Bollywood.
Revolving around all ugly but truthful characters that evidently are an unwanted part of our social structure, UGLY takes no time to come to its basic storyline dragging you in. But then keeps stretching on the thin plot with many interesting angles of wicked relationships thrown in failing to make any emotional connect with the viewer. As a result post intermission the erratic ego clashes, ill ambitions and extreme graphical violence takes over the basic theme dropping its overall pace and the director gets too much indulged in these all forgetting the poor soul kidnapped. Meanwhile, within this tension he also finds time to mock the use of item girl/songs in our Hindi films, inserting the ‘must-have’ skin show too featuring Surveen Chawla who is fast becoming the ‘ready to shed her clothes girl’ of the industry…… willfully. The camerawork gives the desired eerie feel to the film perfectly depicting the poor locales of Mumbai and Background score/Soundtrack is as raw as required with a fine mix of pop and rock both designed and used efficiently.
Hence UGLY stays an above average dark thriller mainly because it keeps exploring the cunning, greedy characters throughout missing that emotional touch one should feel thinking about the kidnap of that helpless kid girl. Following his fixed feature of ridiculing the system (found in his every movie), AK gets more involved in this very mission diluting the overall suspense factor in the film which returns only in its final five minutes and the closing shot providing that much needed shock to the viewers. In short watching all its twists and turns revealing the hidden nasty side of its various characters, the one person you forget to think about completely in those two hours is the poor girl kidnapped in the beginning.
Sharing honestly, I always see a bit of AK’s first film PAANCH, hiding somewhere in his every attempt intentionally or unintentionally. Probably the fact that his first baby remains unreleased till date, not reaching the audience as he wished for, gives him immense pain affecting his thought process even today. And that makes me think that had PAANCH released normally more than a decade before, we would have had an entirely different Anurag Kashyap as a director, coming out of his own gritty shell of dark realism with more love, warmth and meaning in his exceptional films.
Rating : 3 / 5
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