Review: SHORGUL

BRAINS GUL

½ star

Mini Review:

Do you have nothing better to do than watch a story about a small town burning and killing and raping people over religion? Can you be so bored that you could watch cliches in character and dialog? Then this movie might satisfy you and give you the despair you are craving for.

Main Review:

Ashutosh Rana plays the Good Chowdhary with moochs that rival the best you have seen in cinema, fair to both Hindus and Muslims.

Jimmy Shergill as Bad Hindu Politician who does all things ‘bad’: landgrabbing, alcohol consumption, parties with nautch girls, thinks nothing of inciting Hindu-Muslim riots before elections.

One nasty creepy eyed Maulana who has a stable of young Muslim men who talk rashly about ‘Qaum’ and ‘Mazhab’. Of course he is cahoots with the Bad Hindu Politician, otherwise how can you incite people to violence?

Hiten Tejwani plays the Good Muslim Man in love with a Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl.

Eijaz Khan is the Hot Headed Muslim Man who has shown up at Hiten’s home from Gujarat to finish his studies. He sports a burn on his neck (which looks like pizza slapped on) and a very nasty attitude (‘We are different from them and we need to be armed against them’).

Sanjay Suri plays the good Chief Minister (and looks like he never got out of his Nil Battey Sannata role).

You also have Narendra Jha playing the Bad Muslim Politician who incites crowds. There’s also the Mamaji who is scheming and nasty and ambitious.

There are stock lathi-wielding henchmen behind every important character.

There is a Good Police Officer who attempts to uphold the law and play the role of the peacemaker.

If you are tired of reading about cliches, let me tell you more about the Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl played by a Turkish import. Poor girl. Her blue eyes and her sometimes Tisca Chopra, sometimes Sonakshi Sinha looks could have been enough for a print advertisement. But her acting skills are suspect, and the strange dubbed voice doesn’t help.  She has a ‘Bachpan Ka Friend’ Raghu (Good Chowdhary’s son) who’s in love with her but has never expressed his love because he knows she is engaged to be ‘Nikaah’ed to Good Muslim Man Hiten Tejwani. The Hot Headed Muslim Cousin disapproves of this friendship and in a moment of rage kills Bachpan Ka Friend.

There, you know the rest. The dialog is so terrible and cliched you can predict it. You know which characters are going to die. So horribly cliched are the sets, you know it’s a Muslim house because it has green walls. All the actors sleepwalk through their roles because you have seen them before in many movies doing the same thing.

And no matter how blue the Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl’s eyes are, Ashutosh Rana’s mooches win the two hour sixteen minute battle for attention hands down.