If mislabeling was a criminal offense in Bollywood, Gunday producer Aditya Chopra’s sorry ass would be scraping jail floors right now for cheating the public en masse.

I’ve seen many Chutiyas in Bollywood but none so brazen as Aditya Chopra (the non-steroid biceps, less retarded offspring of the late jalebiwallah Yash Chopra who strayed into Bollywood) for his effrontery in flogging trashy love as daring crime.

False Labeling

Notwithstanding an attention-grabbing title that suggests a daredevil saga of tough gangsters, endless blood and ceaseless violence, Gunday (Outlaws/Thugs/Goons) is in reality a lengthy, silly, tiresome, effete love story.

Its title notwithstanding, Gunday is not a tale of dreaded Mafia dons instilling panic in enemies or fear among the masses for their bloody crimes.

Truth be said, the two gundays (goons) seemed to spend more time either plotting against or fighting with each other.

Refugees from Bangladesh, the two gundays Bala and Bikram behave like two wayward high school punks overdosing on local hooch than two big time gangsters who are supposedly the crime lords of Calcutta.

No crime lord ever behaved in as moronic a manner as Bala and Bikram do in this fatuous love story.

Not for one moment are Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor convincing as crime lords of Calcutta.

Thank God, the real Indian gangsters like Varadaraja Mudaliar, Haji Mastan, Yusuf Patel and Karim Lala are either dead or in the case of Dawood bhai and Tiger Memon holed up in Pakistan! Otherwise, they’d have laughed themselves silly at this Gunday spectacle!

Crime is merely the cover, the fig leaf for a hopeless love story bereft of any charm in this piece of garbage.

I will admit though that I was not displeased with the performances of my favorites Saurabh Shukla (who plays the key aide Kaakha to Bala & Bikram,) and Irrfan Khan (police officer Satyajeet Sarkar on the trail of the two ‘thugs’).

Solid as these two actors always are, they are condemned to utter worthlessness by Gunday’s asinine story.

As for the music or the dances, don’t remind me of them unless you want to feel my wrath.

Love Rubbish

Gunday’s story in essence is about two kids Bala (Arjun Kapoor) and Bikram (Ranveer Singh) arriving in Calcutta after the Bangladesh ‘liberation’ war of 1971.

Starting as waiters in a restaurant, they quickly take control of the illegal coal trade, steel scrap, extortion and all other criminal activities in Calcutta while helping Mother Teresa (I’m Not Kidding!) and building hospital and schools on the side.

This part of the movie feels so rushed and trashy because Gunday’s jackass director Ali Abbas Zafar had a desperate crotch-itch to get to the love story.

Once love enters the picture in the form of cabaret dancer Nandita (Priyanka Chopra), who both Bala and Bikram fall for, dhandha (illicit businesses of Bala and Bikram) completely fades into the background and the film is irretrievably ruined.

Some scenes like young Bala asking the restaurant owner to hand the coins into his hands were outright lifts from old Hindi hits (a la the young kid Vijay in Yash Chopra’s Deewar, one of Amitabh Bachchan’s big successes in the 1970s).

Lifeless Priyanka

If mislabeling a pathetic love story as a film on outlaws or thugs was the worst part of Gunday, the second loathsome aspect of the film was Priyanka Chopra’s pitiful performance as the undercover police agent Nandita Sengupta who pretends to be in love with Bikram as part of the police gameplan to divide the inseparable friends Bala and Bikram.

In yet another lifeless performance, Priyanka Chopra has no scene she’s present in that she does not wreck. Even her skin-show and thigh-show scenes fail to help since the woman is utterly lacking in the sex appeal department.

Her confrontations as ‘Police Inspector Nandita Sengupta of the Crime Branch’ with Bikram after revealing her real identity, the key meeting with her boss Satyajeet Sarkar in the church graveyard and the final fight scene at the mines were all so inept that they beggared belief.

One of Bollywood’s most worthless stars, and one utterly incapable of emoting, Priyanka Chopra’s extended presence in the Hindi film industry makes me wonder about the possible explanations for her ability to still land roles – Casting couch, contacts, pretty face, wanton eagerness to shed clothes et al.

But none of the above explanations ring true.

Simple truth – Raw Sewage rises to the top in Bollywood!

Skip It

It’s a shame that for the sake of a few coins, Yash Raj Films’ head honcho Aditya Chopra decided to pull the wool over the eyes of the unsuspecting public by peddling a pathetic, silly love story as a daring crime film on two outlaws.

SearchIndia.com recommends you show this boring love story a.k.a. Gunday the middle finger with gusto.

This trash deserves nothing less than a raised middle finger!

[North American Readers: House of Cards, Season 2 is out at Netflix!]

  Ranveer Singh