Bangistan

By the promos, one expects a hilarious laugh riot which sounded amazing, extremely novel and different. But what the film offers is a big let-down. The film runs with a snail's pace. The director is unclear whether he wants to deliver his message through humour and satire or moralizing lecturing.

Initially Bangistan promises a bang and showers hints of satire in almost every scene, dialogue and frame; but runs out of impressive ideas and additions soon after the successful take-off. In this supposedly comedy film, there are just handful of moments that bring a smile on your face and most of the time, you just stare in horror at the pointless stuff happening in front of you. The film's music somehow is a relief.

Riteish Deshmukh was the eye among the blind. Though he was confused most of the times. Pulkit Samrat was the epitome of over-acting. Jacqueline Fernandez's role was a mere blink & miss in 3-4 scenes & 1 song. She was not required at all & was used as a prop. Aarya Babbar was funny in 1 or 2 scenes. The performances of rest were unsound.

The problem with ‪‎Bangistan‬ is that it tries to be too many things at the same time. The film's promos promise a comedy however, the jokes soon start falling flat one after the other. Then the director suddenly decides to make a preachy film with a social message on religious harmony. It's ultimate undoing lies in its desperate lunge towards delivering a message in the climax (which was the saving grace).

As an idea it really feels exciting to assume a film about two amateurish suicide bombers from a fictitious (Indian) land, planning to sabotage a World Peace Conference held in Poland. And the excitement increases further when in this comic plot, the Hindu bomber poses as a Muslim and the Muslim one portrays himself as a Hindu, trying to fool the authorities and participants together. However as experienced many times before, the plot that looks like a killer one on the paper doesn't turn out to be anything even close to average or fairly enjoyable when transformed into a film unfortunately.

Beginning on a positive note, revealing the hidden secret behind every communal riot happening in the city, BANGISTAN commences as a political satire with all Indian characters in the script, but then slowly gets into the mold of a western comedy, unable to make any kind of substantial impact on the viewer due to more than one reason. Apart from all (unexpectedly) over the top performances, it has many weird sequences like a hotel room (in Poland) with a big hole in the roof connecting it with the upper floor, a goat brought in the same hotel for Eid without the owner's permission, an over- clever Hindi speaking taxi driver being the informer, the two Russian/Chinese eccentric bomb suppliers with their hidden laboratories and the two foreign police officers behaving like fools. The dialogues that ought to be the backbone of such message oriented satires, have been written pretty casually with only few enjoyable lines coming after long gaps.

Having a decent opening 15 minutes, the pointless script keeps progressing with all forced, supposed to be funny moments post interval too. And then it eventually comes to an end with a long, preachy unimpressive climax that is unable to convey any kind of social message of 'One Religion' to the viewers. In short, though director Karan Anshuman might have had all good intentions to make an entertaining comedy with a message of World peace, the film fails to deliver the same and disappoints badly. In other words, following a western pattern of satirical comedy featuring all Indian characters, BANGISTAN keeps hanging in between and remains far away from impactful attempts such as the recent FILMISTAAN and more.

In the performances, Ritesh Deshmukh tries his best but also looks like uninterested and unconvinced with the content throughout its two hours of duration. On the other hand, Pulkit Samrat puts in much more energy than required going over the top and so do the actors in the supporting cast, particularly the hamming Arya Babbar. Moreover its really confusing to see Jacqueline in such a poor role of a local waitress doing simply nothing in the film other than providing the glamour.

Summing up, BANGISTAN has a poor direction, below average soundtrack but a better cinematography that unsuccessfully tries to give a significant message of 'One Religion of the World' to its audience.

However mentioning its only merit, there is a thoughtful song coming towards the end with the lyrics,

"Mujhko Kuchh Bhi Pata Nahin Tha, Waqt Bada Hi Achha Tha, Mera Koi Dharam Nahin Tha, Jab Main Chhota Bacha Tha"

Director does not know his craft for sure. There is not a single scene where you can appreciate his work, rather he drags scenes so it comes as slap than slapstick. Writers had a good idea but execution and development are really not worthy. Like teli shopping style of arms showcasing could have been funny but due to exaggeration is comes flat then turns into irritation. This film is full of exaggeration, rather use of Saffron or Green color or the parallel cuts. First of all, main plot of interchanging religion is totally illogical. When every religion is sending there representative in a religious world conference, which is ridiculously without any security protection, according to makers, then why did their master send their respective person with religion change!? Selected person are so stupid that even being on a bomb planting mission they agree to almost share a duplex type of flat which has unbelievably hole in the roof. Creative team are like aliens, who does not know the basic possibility because they are not ready to find some interesting things so they always take the most convenient childish solution for everything. They insert scene where pigeon carries a letter. Which era they belong to!? Motel owner clearly mentioned that no animal is allowed but person takes that animal for a walk!? Why would any stranger go to other person flat to keep the animal because their society does not allow it!? The Poland Police is so naïve that they can't find anything suspicious and searches in idiotic way. I am unable to understand that why such type of country give makers subsidy to show them stupid. Pre climax is most irritating and climax is above all frustrating. Performance wise Ritesh Deshmukh is miscast. He is an undoubtly a good actor and deserves better script. Pulkit Samrat is perfectly fit, as his unbalanced acting perfectly fits this flick. One thing is sure, you can't stop yourself laughing when he cries. Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akash Dabhade, Kumud Mishra are good actors but without scope. Music by Ram Sampat is good. Lyrics by Puneet Krishna, are heavy but fit in the film.

Knew this movie from @iamsrk tweet in reply to @FarOutAkhtar. It has Riteish Desmukh (which is comedy guarantee).

The idea was a bit weak, but they tried to make it less controversy. Maybe for some people its a good movie, but I'd be not. This movie has a good message (though I got the message long time ago) in terms of peace. But it also emphasizing one's religion to others, maybe Oh My God! told us better, but let's give the credit to Hafeez bin Ali, Praveen Chaturvedi, Imam and the Pandit-ji whom use iPad.

Music a bit catchy. Hogi Kranti delivers some unique things to viewers (at least me) then credit tittle song can't be skipped though.

Jacqueline Fernandez as special appearance did good, but not really help the case which Hafeez and Praveen has been through. Direction itself is a bit unstable, and the story itself should be developed into something funnier, mightier and so on.

In short, Bangistan is a cheerful trying to make us laugh (yes it did, Riteish did well) and delivered mediocre message to us.

Enjoyed the movie, it has good mix of sarcastic humor and parellel drawn.

Definitely deserves more credit than I see right now.