Shanghai (2012)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

We have another great film from Dibakar Banerjee. He sure knows the importance of a story in a film. Khosla ka ghosla is still my favorite story. And now he has come up with a political thriller, though based on the acclaimed novel. The beauty of the film definitely lies in its awesome story, but there are other things too, to focus upon. The story revolves around a construction project which step by step unearthed the evil plans for its erection. This is one of the few Bollywood films, you ought to watch.PROS:The acting by almost all the cast was above average. Abhay deol looked too good as the IAS officer. Imraan haashmi has done a fine job, at least after the image that he has. The art direction definitely needs to be applauded. The locations were apt and the general look and feel was scary and dark at appropriate instances. The sound too was good. Some of the major characters were very nicely developed and analyzed. You are entirely into the film after just 10 minutes.CONS:When the film finished I really had the feeling that it wound up quickly. I felt that the second half should have been explored a bit more. There might have been a possibility of around 20 minutes more of the film. In the end everything seemed to happen so quickly that your mind is entirely on the details, but when you suddenly know that the film is going to finish, you want more to be shown on the screen.MESSAGE: "You cannot always escape."VERDICT: "A must watch."

Right from the beginning of Indian cinema, Bengali directors have been phenomenal in contributing spellbound movies to Hindi cinema. Dibakar Banerjee (Khosla ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky Oye, Love sex aur dhoka) continues this legacy, and Shangai is the latest evidence for that. From the casting to the performances to the story to the bg-score to the dialogues, everything scores full marks for this political thriller, set in the contemporary India.The story begins with a preplanned accident of Dr. Ahmedi (Prosenjit Chaterjee) , a political activist, who raises voice against a leading political party which is trying to encroach the slum area of Bharatnagar. Rest of the movie is about gathering the evidence about this by his student (Kalki koelchin), with the help of Jogi, (Emraan Hashmi), a porn movie maker. Meanwhile, T.A.Krishnan, a bureaucrat (Abhay Deol), is brought in to the case, to investigate in the favor of the political party. Do the circumstances and the system in the contemporary India, will be successful in doing any justice? forms the climax.What I liked: Story Abhay Deol as a south Indian doesn't speak like the way usually a Tamilian is shown in Hindi cinema. No forced accent Emraan Hashmi performs naturally as the rustic guy (He should take a break from the Bhatt camp and act in movies like these) Pitobash was extremely good as the gullible youth of Bharatnagar A very realistic approach for such a themeWhat I did not like: Affair between Dr.Ahmedi and Shalini was unnecessary. It did not make any sense to the story.

I am happy after watching this movie not because the movie has a optimistic feel to it (its actually the exact opposite,as it should be) but on seeing how dibakar has used a story that is so real and holds true to a country like India where the present political system is so corrupt and the power hungry mongers will go to any extent to achieve money and power without thinking about the implication that it might cost. Now coming back to the movie,the location used looks like a true Indian city or a town. People who are fed up of seeing lavish houses in most of the Indian movies or only foreign locations and fell guilty as more than 90% of the people don't have that luxury will be content. Acting wise i am happy with all except Kalki Koechlin,some how she seems too plastic in her acting but i think she did her best. So looking at the way Indian politicians and its citizens our behaving India has a bleak future but if such movies are made which have an overall good story,acting,locations and such and puts forward realism than hypocrisy as in many other Indian films,Indian cinema has a bright future. So hats off to the whole team involved especially Dibakar Banerjee for his efforts in making a movie such as this. Good work Keep it up.

Not very often do mainstream Indian film directors fully channel their vision onto screen; the true potential gets vaporized in an attempt to please the audiences. Also coming in the way is the director's self indulgence, profoundly seen in Ram Gopal Varma's recent ventures, rendering a discordant and utterly baffling soup. Case in point the unbelievable, WTF ending in Sarkar Raj 2 that implicated almost half the cast as baddies (in the third installment, maybe even gardeners and fisher-women may be working for some international drug cartel). What most directors lack is a balance, yes, Indian movies are known worldwide for their colors but let those colors be bright, not gaudy. A majority of them cannot create believable characters or a plot and showcase it on the screen, and I'm just talking films – if I start blasting Indian television soaps, it would probably make up an entire book!This bastardizing of Indian films either to make money or ape foreign movies had caused me to take a break from Bollywood. I didn't even buy Vidya Balan's Kahaani, which seemed to be an Eat, Pray Love with Bidya (It's Vidya btw…) one moment and a claustrophobic femme fatale action movie the next. Never overemphasize mundane sequences in an action film, let them stay primly in the background. Four scores and seven years later… or, maybe a month or two later, I saw myself sitting comfortably, with no popcorn in my hand and a bunch of immature boys below my row, in a PVR theater in Baroda, waiting for Shanghai to start. The attendance seemed very poor, but it was a respite for me – a better air-conditioner effect! The title of Shanghai seemed to cover almost the entire screen, already pumped up to make a statement (Jaago Grahak Jaago Re… like) and the names of the cast and crew followed, some familiar, some not very. And then began the movie. The first shot is a bird's eye view of a city, which looks poles apart from Shanghai and seems more like Mumbai (the film is shot in Maharashtra). The next is a close up shot of a hairy, messy Bhagu as he talks about mutton. The short, pint-sized man then proceeds to assault a shop-owner with his reluctant partner Jaggu. The opening scene itself sets the tone for the rest of the film – we are in for plenty of close-ups, some impressive camera effects such as slow motion, dim and grim lighting, succinct and clever dialogues, dark humor and believable characters.The movie discusses a familiar concept: Bharat Nagar, a fictional city, is flourishing with new infrastructure projects backed by IBP, the ruling political party headed by Madamji (played wisely with demure restraint by Supriya Pathak). But we already see how demagogically the party runs by using common men as pawns. Only Dr. Ahmedi (Prasenjit Chatterjee), a dissident social worker raises his voice and comes to India to forewarn people about the trickery of IBP – he believes the poor are being deceived regarding their relocation. His campaign in Bharat Nagar is supported by his one-time student Shalini Sahay (earnestly played by Kalki Koechlin) who left the States after having an illicit romance with the married man. After the speech, when Ahmedi sternly rebukes the police for not maintaining enough protection, he is hit by a truck all of a sudden. This event is filmed by a videographer/pornographer Joginder Parmar (diligently portrayed by Emraan Hashmi, who also developed some peculiarities for his slightly obnoxious character), who also covers interviews by IBP and such. In the fracas, Joginder and Kalki's lives intertwine when the former's friend has some evidence of foul play in the event. Also working on the case is a studious, no-nonsense bureaucrat T.A Krishnan who strives to collect new evidence but finds (i) a pudgy, gluttonous politician Kaul (a scrumptious performance by Farooq Sheikh) who pressurizes him to close the case immediately and (ii) obdurate police officers who are scared to tell the truth.One glance at the poster of the film, I never would've imagined this was a political thriller; the poster is very misleading and makes this seem like a typical murder mystery with a detective in the form of Abhay Deol. Alter that, please. The movie is a smart political thriller that proceeds in 'City of God' style and has traces of Tarantino and Hitchcock in the sense that its various disparate characters gradually come closer as the climax approaches. The performance by everyone is understated and this is partly because the script deals cogently with action, dialogues, location and effects. Never does it get too artsy or too clever or too frenetic. The characters aren't shown completing one task throughout the film and there are scenes which give them depth; for example, the dangerous Bhagu is insulted by his English teacher, which could be a stimulant for his violence. I heard an interview where Dibakar Banerjee said 'we shouldn't bring in Dr. Ahmedi's infidelity as a shortcoming of his political agenda' because both the matters aren't closely related. Such details are what make characters leap alive, and we don't get dead flowers like the ones in Ra.one.The award season should be teeming with Shanghai's cast, all for best supporting roles: Deol, Hashmi, Sheikh, Chaterjee, Koechlin, Tillomala Shome (in a short yet memorable performance as Dr. Ahmedi's wife), Pathak and even Tripathy. I hope some, especially Deol and Hashmi, do get some recognition. The writing, cinematography, music should strike some gold (or bronze or whatever metal they use to make the lady). The best film, I'm slightly unsure because Shanghai is a one-time watch; as some critics rightly pointed, there could've been more. The movie has made a statement successfully but it's lacking background. But I also feel it's been some time since I was so invested in a Bollywood film. The Indian mainstream cinema needs a change, and movies like Shanghai should make some difference. My Rating:7.6/10