Ghanchakkar – 4/5

Ghanchakkar (Image: Wikipedia)

It is always a shame when you go along to watch a movie which has so much potential, but which falls short of it. Rajkumar Gupta’s latest offering Ghanchakkar is one such experiment, which offers an excellent premise, but seems to lose steam during its second half.

Sanju (Emraan Hashmi) is a master safe cracker who reluctantly agrees to participate in one last bank robbery before retiring from his life of crime. His accomplices, Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) and Idris (Namit Das), instruct Sanju to hold on to the loot for three months until the police lose interest in the case. Fast forward three months and Sajnu has developed amnesia and can’t remember a thing – most importantly, where he has hidden the money. The hapless Pandit and Idris are occasionally sympathetic to his cause – trying to help Sanju to remember the night of the heist – but they become increasingly desperate as their fearsome head gangster pressures them to recover the sum. All the while Sanju’s high maintenance wife Neetu, played by Vidya Balan, is running around doing her ditzy, over-the-top, Punjabi housewife thing.

From the outset, Gupta creates a sense of claustrophobic foreboding with the tight shots of a darkened and somewhat lonely house for Sanju and Neetu to cohabit. Their strangely hot-and-cold, but overall stagnant marriage is well illustrated, with the two of them in such different places. Their on-screen chemistry sizzles in both its feistiness and its raw sexuality. The brooding Sanju is occasionally happy, but generally appears pained, while Neetu lives in a parallel universe of fashion magazines and not-so-haute couture. Emraan Hashmi, looking great in this role, carries off the part perfectly, while Vidya Balan convincingly plays a character so unlike her other releases. The main problem here is that there’s simply not enough scope for Balan to shine – while she’s great at what she does, Neetu’s part is so limited to stock-standard ditzy carrying on and occasional angered screaming. What we do see, however, is gold. Likewise, Hashmi does an excellent role – but we are left somehow wanting more. Sharma and Das, equally, never seem to be able to fulfil their potential as either terrifying goons or birdbrained lackeys.

Dysfunctional yet sizzling; Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan in Ghanchakkar (Image: Bollywood Journal)

The music, an interesting electronic jazz-inspired Punjabi medley composed by Amit Trivedi, works perfectly, except for a couple of strangely chosen guitar numbers at crucial points in the film. The film is a dark psychological thriller, interspersed with black comedy. Does it sound like a lot of things for one film to be? If so, then you are right – it is jam packed full of different elements, and that is what makes it so great. However, it is also ultimately its downfall, because in trying to be so many different things, one is not really sure what to expect of the ending – if it will be dark, thrilling, shocking or hilarious. The final scene – and I won’t spoil it for those who want to watch – is divisive because it can’t be more than one thing at once. This is the type of movie which really hinges on its climax, and while no-one could accuse Ghanchakkar of not having a climax, it will either pull the whole film together for the viewer, or leave them unsatisfied. Personally, I felt that the ending was disappointing for not being intelligent enough, however it didn’t ruin an otherwise well-made and gripping entertainer. One hopes that Vidya Balan and Emraan Hashmi excellent abilities as actors are not tarnished by Ghanchakkar’s disappointing performance at the box office.

Ghanchakkar, which means ‘crazy’ in English, will divide viewers – expect to leave the cinema either crazy about the film, or wondering if Rajkumar Gupta was crazy for taking on such an unwieldy project. I left feeling a bit of both.