Gangs of Godavari Review

Even two-thirds into Krishna Chaitanya's Gangs Of Godavari, question marks swirl around. What motivates the film's thuggish protagonist, Ratna (Vishwak Sen)? Is he trying to "pull a Pushpa" and swindle his way to the top of the local sand mafia? Is he vying for the MLA seat for the benefit of the poor people of his village? Is he driven by base animal instinct or does he have morals? Is Ratna fighting for money, fame and family, or just being notorious for notoriety's sake? It is only through snatches of dialogue delivered on deathbeds that we deduce what Ratna's end game is. But by then, just one question remains - who even cares?

Krishna Chaitanya tries to paint a complex portrait of his protagonist. And in some ways, he succeeds in breaking the trope of Telugu anti-heroes who are revealed to be heroes after all, if only misjudged ones. Ratna gambles, steals, betrays his friends, sleeps with the village prostitute (who has a soft spot for him, of course), and wedges his way into the gang of the local MLA Dorasami (Goparaju Ramana). And from this perch, Ratna rises and rises until he becomes a mafia man himself. Selfishness and opportunism are the only words he lives by until he meets Bujji (Neha Shetty), the daughter of Nanaji (Nasser), Dorasami's rival.

Bujji tries to be his moral compass but his bad boy instincts always get in the way. Ratna's backstory - the typical point when a story turns sappy and routine - is unexpectedly dark. His father's traumatic death does little to redeem Ratna, but at least it explains why he grows up to be the egotist that he is.

Yet, the formulaic scaffold of the movie works against any nuances Krishna Chaitanya's script may have had. There is the raging male protagonist; the soft, ultra-feminine heroine; an assortment of fat middle-aged politicos decked out in gold chains and flashy rings; a narrative about warring political factions that skids from one boring fight to another; and an item song that is thrust smack-dab in the middle of it all.

Chaitanya's script is curiously both underwritten and overwritten. In a span of a few minutes an errant face-slap kills a promising character and rearranges the narrative chess board in confusing ways. Another intriguing villain makes an entry only to be cut loose soon after. The plot throws so much at us at such a disorienting pace that characters' motivations are hard to keep track of. At the same time, the dialogues only half-articulate the lofty ideas that the film tries to grapple with. Ratna and Bujji's strained relationship over Ratna's worst flaws should have been at the centre of the film but instead it gets sidelined to make room for gimmicky fight sequences like the one on a moving lorry or the one inside a burning police station.

Indeed, everywhere you turn, you see lost opportunities. Whether it is the over-directed scenes where side-actors stand around in mind-numbingly staged positions or the "Gangs" being styleless and bland. Despite the ambitious title, the film has no strong sense of place and no real gang warfare to speak of. A couple of throwaway scenes about illegal sand mining in the Godavari riverbed is its way of situating its plot in a time and place - that and Vishwak Sen's overdone Godavari accent. The so-called gangs are simply loose-formed alliances between interchangeable characters who switch sides faster than you can keep track.

With Gangs Of Godavari, Vishwak Sen once again attempts to fast-track his way into superstardom by doing the kind of mass film (after the failed Das Ki Dhamki) that should have been long-dead now. Where the focus is on putting out a variety of scenes - a fight, a romantic song, an anger-filled rant, a melodrama - that showcase an actor's range rather than a sincere film with compelling characters that tells a coherent story. But sacrificing the needs of the character to satisfy the ambitions of an actor is, as Gangs Of Godavari proves, just bad cinema.

It often feels like Sen is reaching out of the screen and begging us to take him seriously. He does a fine job as Ratna, but it's nothing we haven't seen from him before. Neha Shetty as Bujji is a real asset to the film even though she is herself underserved by it, given precious few scenes despite the centrality of her character. In one such scene, a crucial one where she must quickly cycle through a range of emotions of anger, disgust and shock, is a fantastic glimpse into her underutilized talents. Goparaju Ramana, who often plays huggable dad characters, feels miscast as the conniving MLA, especially since the script often decides to use him for comic relief as well.

Gangs Of Godavari is ultimately a pastiche of other mass films that says and does nothing original, and worse, does not entertain either. Like Naga Shourya's Rangabali or Ram Pothineni's Skanda, similarly derivative films of recent times, it will be instantly erased from our collective memories.