Performances make ”shor” but the plot's "gul". Review on Shorgul

More curiosity was created after last week’s fatwa over Shorgul, which made it even more interesting. Director Pranav Singh and Jitendra Tiwari has pull out a gruesome story that was the most dreadful incident in the history of UP. Riots of 2013 in Muzaffarabad, worst episode for any political party that ruled UP at the time, is depicted as the base plot of the movie, or rather the inter-religious war that struck the whole propaganda.

The movie basically runs on three-part story; the first of Chaudhary(Ashutosh Rana) and Ranjit Om(Jimmy Shergill), second story about Alam Khan(Narendra Jha) and CM Mithilesh Singh Yadav(Sanjay Suri) and Raghu(Aniruddh Dave), Zainab(Suha Gezen) and Saleem(Hiten Tejwani). Their lives contrive together in such a way(really haphazard) that this leads to the most unwanted rise of situations.

The movie is about Mahilabad and its politics, this town is famous for its mango orchards as well as a killing field. Chaudhary is a community patriarch, a more of Gandhian figure whose personal integrity makes him equally popular amongst Hindus and Muslims. While Ranjit is a sunglasses-wearing and in a typical attire what reminds you of BJP clan-wardrobe. He is not one of the guys that I or we have ever seen him in. he cares none to take the hook or crook way to get his political desires fulfilled. But Chaudhary manages to stumble upon every evil plot Ranjit contrives to strike, but less that he knew that his own house will be the source of the menace that was about to begin.

Chaudhary’s son Raghu is in love with their neighbour Zainab, this is more of a one-sided love. Zainab(our Turkish model) is engaged to Saleem. This makes for the base story and when this love-cum-use-it-to-create-war story is out in the hands of Ranjit and Alam Khan, they use it to fan a war. After this, bodies start falling everywhere and every famous person gets killed. The killings are more than the entire Games of Thrones series and Sanjay Suri randomly and intentionally shows up to whitewash a famous UP CM, taking the opportunity that presented itself.

There are times when you hear dialogues that came straight out of Nana Patekar’s Krantiveer or somewhat from that era. The movie states current situation but kind of lingers over 2003 riots of Gujarat as well. Bringing every riot to one platform and fail to deliver justice to any of the incidents and manages to just jumble it up ever-so-more.

Though the writers and directors tried to bring out a much supressed agenda of political underbelly and religious scams, while floated as headlines in the Indian media. There has good enough effort to give a gripping experience, but the movie doesn’t seem to be captivating as this has been the part and parcel of Indian politics, a known fact by all.

What got more squeamish are few scenes and the acting delivered. Please-let-me-go was the feeling that crawled up every now and then. Take for example, guy getting killed with the iron rod in his stomach(gross) and instead of screaming or writhing in pain he merely shouts Zainab’s name(what duh). It gets better with moving minutes, in a scene of riot where people just randomly fly and play dandiya with their weapons(even tough to crack for Sherlock). The songs are very well placed during certain intervals so that one can actually take a look at e-mails received or not.

The movie is threaded with such talented and skilled actors but still manages to slide down the plot. Talking about Rana and Jimmy, no words need to be said for their performances but one “flawless”. Hiten Tejwani seems to be in his role from Kutumb, stuck in that time and his only purpose is to look awkward and deflect any attack onto his girl to himself(typical). Then there is Suha, who look like Agha Khan but in a more-old-for-this character way, smiles all the way gratingly, cries bucket-full, and what saddens the most is the fact we get to her more on screen space than required(as this is her story).

Would have liked to see Rana and Jimmy in much sensible storyline that could have designed from this plot as well. This flick definitely picked a plot that is quite tedious and daunting, and so doesn’t deliver much.

My verdict, if you don’t know about 2013 incidents or how politics worked around it, or want to know in shortcut way through movie, I’d say better Google it and dodge this bore-bullet.