I came across the DVD of Gangster: A Love Story in the stores several weeks back, but kept it aside as another of those erotic thrillers that the Bhatt Brothers’ Movie Factory has been churning out in the recent years. About a week back a friend who knows I am always on the lookout for something ‘different’ suggested that I give this film a try. I did, and was pleasantly surprised to find a winner from the Bhatts after a long time! Directed by Anurag Basu whose first film Murder (2004) was a campy remake of Adrian Lyne’s Unfaithful (2002), Gangster may be perceived as just another violent mafia movie. Indeed, it has enough gore and bullet shots to qualify as one. However, the film is less about gangsters than it is about the complexities of love, obsession, passion, sacrifice, jealousy, trust and betrayal in human relationships.

Shot in beautiful locales in Seoul, South Korea, the film is loosely based on the life of real life don, Abu Malek and his lady love, Monica Bedi. Basu has taken the genre of the gangster thriller and transformed it into an emotional drama by focusing on the personal life of a dreaded gangster and narrating it from the point of view of the woman who gets involved with him, falls in love with another man, and the devastating ramifications of the choices each makes. 

Told in flashbacks, the story of Simran, Daya, and Akaash, unfolds in bits and pieces. The film begins with a shoot-out that leaves Simran in a hospital bed, a shroud of mystery surrounding the narrative at this point. The mystery remains intact as we are taken back to the past and follow Simran on a self destructive path in life. She is an alcoholic with suicidal tendencies, and roams around the streets of Seoul, driven by some unknown anguish. Her only friend and supporter is Aakaash a night club singer. Aakaash’s sensitivity and constant support leads her to trust him with the dark story of her life. She eventually reveals to him and to us how she meets the dreaded gangster Daya, falls in love with him and follows him through a bullet-ridden, blood-drenched path as he flees the law and the gang related violence that is part of his day to day life. Her dream of having a simple life, building a home and a family, soon erodes and she ends up in Seoul, eking out a lonely, meaningless, alcohol-soaked existence. Drinking is her panacea: it helps her forget the trauma of being on the run, of seeing her adopted child shot in her arms, of her increasing distance from Daya who is in hiding in Dubai and Mauritius. Daya’s weekly calls from unknown places are the only semblance of a family life. Simran's pain and loneliness draws Aakaash closer to her and eventually she responds and falls deeply in love. 

Simran stays with, tied by obligation and a sense of responsibility, yearning for Aakaash. However, the past catches up with them very soon, in the form of the police, Daya’s former patron don now turned mortal enemy, and Simran’s pregnancy with Aakaash’s child. Simran finds herself at a moral crossroads in her life and has to eventually make a choice. As the film spirals rapidly towards its denouement, the flashback ends and we are taken back to the where we started, a brutal shoot-out. All the pieces fall together, albeit with a number of unexpected twists and turns, and the story ends tragically, but satisfactorily.

The strong storyline is ably supported by the good performances the director has extracted from his relatively unknown cast. Shiney Ahuja as Daya, follows up on his promising debut in Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005) with another powerful performance. He doesn’t speak much, emoting through actions, body language and expressions. His emotional breakdown at the end is remarkable for its intensity and the extent of agony he expresses in primarily non-verbal animal-like ways. Emraan Hashmi, the only ‘star’ in this movie, is effective as the sensitive lover Aakaash, though his uncles can’t resist the temptation of giving him the opportunity to live up to his reputation as the “serial kisser”. As for nineteen year old Kangana Ranaut as Simran, this is a complex role for a young newcomer in her first film, and she does full justice to it. Her look is very natural, very fresh - quite different from most of her contemporaries, and she essays the complexities of Simran with the ease of a veteran. She moves from a lonely, desperate alcoholic, to a woman deeply in love, to a conflicted woman caught between two men and eventually traumatized by the consequences of the choice she finally makes. The only problem I had with her was her voice modulation, the monotone of her narration and the over dramatization of her long and loud outbursts that are too theatrical and grates on one’s nerves. Hopefully, with time and experience, she will overcome this. Gulshan Grover in a small role oozes menace and Vicky Ahuja in a bit role as one of Daya’s loyal henchman is good. 

Anurag Basu seems to have come a long way since Murder and handles the intricacies of this multi-layered narrative with conviction and a strong grasp over every aspect of his craft. With amazing cinematography by Bobby Singh, a taut screenplay by Basu himself the movie takes the genre of the mafia thriller and makes it a fast paced emotional drama – perhaps engendering a whole new genre of filmmaking. One of the main highlights of the movie is the evocative music by Pritam Chakraborty, each song a gem in itself. The scenic beauty, fast traffic, high-rises and narrow lanes of Seoul comes to life through the camera as the perfect setting for this human drama encompassing the whole gamut of human emotions -- love, passion, obsession and atonement and the anguish of being forced to choose between the heart and the mind, between right and wrong, between the perceived and the imagined, between good and evil residing within the recesses of human nature.

There have been several good films made on the mafia in the past. Naam (1986), Nayakan (1987), Parinda (1989), Satya (1998), Vaastav (1999), Company (2002), and the recent Sarkar (2006) come easily to mind. However, in most cases, the focus is on the festering violence and brutality in this world and the dehumanizing impact of this on those who live in it. Gangster looks at the same world from the other end of the spectrum, and comes out with a different vision -- the humanizing impact of human relationships that can transform even the most bestial of criminals. Despite the darkness in the film, despite the cruelties and the betrayals that destroy the individuals who are caught in this drama, this vision illuminates the film with a rare warmth and positive approach to life, love and trust; sin, atonement and redemption in a well crafted, appealing package. It reminded me of the reasons Mahesh Bhatt was a pioneer – he was one of the first to give us gritty, hard hitting stories of trust and betrayal, of the dehumanizing impact of power and the ennobling effect of love. His early films were bold, stark and to a large extent realistic, strong storylines revealing raw wounds, both emotional and psychological. Hopefully Gangster marks a return to that early route. Looking forward to more of the same!