Gunday (2014)

Genre: Crime/Action/Drama/Romance

Starring: Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla

When Yash Raj Films comes out with a new movie whose trailer promises some kick-ass fun, you need to take that with a pinch of salt. Set within Calcutta in the 1970's, the story is about two friends, Bikram (Singh) and Bala (Kapoor) who escaped from Bangladesh during the partition and sneaked into India to make a living. They swiftly learned to make quick money by stealing coal and selling it within the black market. They soon rose to become the heads of one of the largest mafia empires in Calcutta and dealing in all forms of goods from steel, iron, coal, fisheries, wood and a lot more. Enter Satyajeet Sarkar (Khan) the new ACP who vows to take the duo down by hook or crook. When the two fall in love with Nandita (Chopra), a cabaret dancer, Sarkar sees an opportunity to divide the friends and ensure their eventual demise. The movie seems to have started off as being a hardcore crime movie but eventually, and sadly, landed up in becoming a love triangle. Most of the story is just pieced together in a hopeless manner with no concern for a logical story. In spite of being based in Calcutta in the 70's, the movie has little connect to that geography or to that era and the setting seems quite pointless to the movie. Ranveer Singh easily has shown more presence over Arjun Kapoor and has also managed to deliver a far better performance over him too. All-in-all it is a movie that promises a lot but delivers very little, a below average movie that could have been a far better crime movie if attempted to be so.

Thumbs up: Nothing at all

Thumbs down: Bad story, typically Yash Raj

Rating: 4.6/10