Gangs of Wasseypur

Composite Score: 86.43

Starring: Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Richa Chadha, Reema Sen, Piyush Mishra, Huma Qureshi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Vineet Kumar Singh, Punkaj Tripathi, Jameel Khan, and Zeishan Quadri

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Writers: Akhilesh Jaiswal, Anurag Kashyap, Sachin K. Ladia, and Zeishan Quadri

Genres: Action, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller, Epic

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Box Office: $4.38 million worldwide

My take on Watching This Film:

                Gangs of Wasseypur is Anurag Kashyap’s Hindi-language crime epic about three warring families in Wasseypur and Dhanbad – the Khans, the Singhs, and the Qureshis – from the 1940s to the 2000s. The film(s) (most versions you can find split the five hour and twenty-minute runtime into two parts) follows Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) from the 1940s to 1990s as he wars with the corrupt politician Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia) who had his father Shahid (Jaideep Ahlawat) killed when he threatened to replace Singh as head of the mines in their province in the 1940s and the Qureshis who formerly were the dominant gang in Wasseypur until Khan moved in. By the end of the 1990s, Sardar Khan’s middle son Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) has taken over the family business and continues to wage war on the Singhs and Qureshis to honor the vows of vengeance taken by his father and older brother and to maintain the safety of his own growing family that now includes his wife Mohsina (Huma Qureshi), his younger brother “Perpendicular” (Aditya Kumar), and his half-brother Definite (Zeishan Quadri), who has his own motives for taking up the life of crime. The interweaving stories across seven decades pay homage to many western crime tropes without ever losing the film’s grounding in India, and it is considered one of the best Bollywood films of all time.

                Thematically, the film should be familiar to anyone who has seen a crime film before – the negative spiral of violence and vengeance, the often-complicated nature of familial loyalty, and the varied nature of crime from social class to social class all feature prominently in the story of the Khans and their quest for vengeance and dominance. Though it takes quite a while to arrive at its destination, the journey is satisfying, and the end is especially so, bringing home all of these themes in an exciting climax that sees a final release of the tension of its convoluted story. Not every character gets the full arc that they deserve, with Faizal and Sardar being the dominant force across the film, pushing the antagonists and supporting cast mostly to the side. Each of the two protagonists does have his own unique story and themes to explore within it, and the contrast between father and son feels strongly reminiscent of the contrast and comparison between Michael and Vito Corleone in the first two Godfather films. Where Sardar is driven by a profound sense of purpose and builds his gang in support of that, Faizal feels driven more by duty to his family and a need for recognition, and his expression of power feels far more wanton and unbridled than his father’s was. At the same time, Faizal is a faithful husband and devoted father where his own father kept a mistress and split time between two families, leaving us with two deeply flawed protagonists – one a raging womanizer and the other a sociopathic murderer. The contrast helps make the film’s conclusion start to feel all the more inevitable as it approaches, leaving the audience with a feeling of catharsis by the time the credits roll.

                Gangs of Wasseypur is an incredibly long (and resultingly difficult to follow in places) but deeply satisfying crime epic that has all the best pieces of western gangster flicks played out in the streets of an outlying Indian province with all of the additional complexities that that entails, earning it recognition as one of the Greatest Films of All Time. The length can be daunting, and there’s no shame in splitting the film into multiple sittings, but once you start it, be sure to make it to the ending, which makes the whole journey worth it. Currently, this film is available to watch with a Mubi subscription or to rent via Apple TV if you’re interested in checking it out.