Ungli

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Angad Bedi, Randeep Hooda, Neil Bhoopalam, Arunoday Singh

Director: Rensil D’Silva

Producer: Karan Johar

Plot: Abhay (a crime journalist), Maya ( a medical intern), Goti ( a computer hardware specialist) and Kalim ( the owner of a garage) are four friends. They began their friendship when they met at a gym, run by their trainer Ricky.

Over the period of a couple of years, all five of them have become a close knit gang. Then one day, Ricky is run over by a young man called Anshuman Dayal. Dayal was drinking and driving, but since his father was a fixer for the police, Anshuman Dayal got away scott-free. The police refused to register an FIR. And when they did, they intimidated the witnesses to the accident. In the process, they made sure the witnesses turned hostile in court.

When the friends find that the system is too corrupt to give them justice, they go into a deep depression.

To make things worse, they find that their friend Ricky is now in a coma after the accident, and there is no hope of ever getting him justice. Ricky is just another victim of the corrupt system that runs India.

However, the four friends decide to do something about it. They train and get in peak physical form. And they become vigilantes. By day they are ordinary citizen of the country. By night, they don masks and turn the tables against the very corrupt system that created them.

They kidnap and take government babus to task. They teach a lesson to the Head of the RTO. They shame the Head of the BMC. And they even take on the might of the police

They do all this in a manner which makes fun of these departments and officials. And they call themselves: UNGLI GANG

What’s unique about Ungli Gang is the fact that they record all their misdeeds on handicam and then send the tapes to news channels. They even upload them on Youtube and the net.

In the process, Ungli Gang becomes the darling of the masses. And most importantly, the youth of this nation. In online polls they are ranked very high indeed. And for the citizens of a country who encounter bribes, corruption and harassment on a daily basis… these four are seen as saviours.

However, the Police Commissioner is not amused. He is being pressurised by the Chief Minister and the Government to put an end to these vigilantes who have taken the law into their own hands. Faced with a declining law an order situation in Mumbai, The Commissioner of Mumbai Police sets up a Task Force headed by the non nonsense, ACP Kale.

Kale is honest to a fault. Ironically, his honesty has been the reason why people within the police department shun him. He is often transferred to the most remote and back of beyond places.

ACP Kale takes on the case and begins to track down Ungli Gang. However, he soon finds that Ungli Gang is not a normal kind of criminal. The four people behind Ungli Gang, he reasons are young, familiar with technology and medicine, and most of all they use their minds to outwit the police.

Kale realises he needs someone who acts and thinks just like them.

Enter, brash, young cop: Nikhil Abhyankar.

Nikhil Abhyankar is a cop who is bored with being a cop. He has a razor sharp mind and thinks almost like a criminal. But he uses his mind to pull pranks on his seniors. He has been transferred from department to department, and he always ends up in trouble. The only reason he is still on the force is the fact that his father was an exemplary officer, who died in the line of duty.

Kale thinks Nikhil has just the kind of mind to help him nab, Ungli Gang. He enlists Nikhil for the job and Nikhil slowly devices a plan to infiltrate Ungli Gang.

However, when Nikhil enters Ungli Gang and begins to understand and relate to Abhay, Maya, Kalim and Goti, he finds that he cannot catch them and hand them over to Kale and the Police. He has begun to empathise with them… Since they have become his friends. Moreover, he begins to see that their actions have led to a fall in corruption.

When Nikhil tells this to Kale and refuses to divulge who Ungli Gang’s members are, or where they are hiding, Kale and Nikhil become adversaries.

How Nikhil, brings Ungli Gang and Kale together. And how he turns these two parties on the corrupt Police Force, to bring it down, makes up the rest of the story…

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars (Three and half stars)

Star Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Angad Bedi, Randeep Hooda, Neil Bhoopalam

Director: Rensil D’Silva

What’s Good: An intelligently written, tightly constructed film which is fun, witty and relevant, all at the same time.

What’s Bad: The film does droop in its melodramatic parts and sometimes it tends to get repetitive.

Loo break: Don’t miss the Ungli show.

Watch or Not?: Coming from the writer of Rang De Basanti, Ungli has the same spark of brilliance. Rensil keeps the story moving fluidly towards a fantastic climax, which is nothing short of genius. The camaraderie between its actors is palpable and despite a few vital pitfalls, the film stays true to what it has set out to achieve. Ungli might not offer a solution to our day to day problems but does a darn good job at tapping the right chords and sentiments and translating it on screen and met out a hard befitting answer to the culprits. And lastly, the best thing about Ungli is it doesn’t get preachy; it asks you to rise up for your rights without hammering your head to it. Give this one a chance, you too will rise up, take charge and show the Ungli.

User Rating: 

A bunch of four, Abhay (Randeep), Maya (Kangana), Goti (Neil) and Kalim (Angad) after an unfortunate incident create a vigilante gang called the Ungli gang. Plagued with corruption, in every faction, every strata of the system, the gang picks up momentum and people’s love by a series of action. But soon enough they find a fan replicating what they do and an application to join the gang. Everyone is skeptical of Nikhil (Emraan) who poses as a law student but is actually an undercover cop, on duty to expose the Ungli gang. Nikhil has their smarts and sharpness. But, Nikhil too believes in their ways. Will he take them to task or join their movement?

Ungli Review: Script Analysis

Coming from the writer of Rang De Basanti, 24 and Kurbaan, we surely know Rensil’s space is nothing like the Dharma framework. He is an intelligent writer who holds his script holy and with Ungli he has done the same. A group of four friends, are a social group who take up issues close to the common man and find apt solutions to it. Milap Zaveri’s lines tells us how candle marches doesn’t help and hunger strikes end them in jail. So what’s the solution – take charge and show the Ungli? That’s the motto of the vigilante gang who can’t be kind to misdeeds corrupt people commit. Sending a auto rickshaw guy on lamba bhaada to Delhi in a goods train, making corrupt traffic cops eat their bribe amount for real. If you think they are heartless, no they aren’t. They even serve pickle with those notes.

After a lamentable incident, a bunch of four regular friends comprising of a medical intern, a crime reporter, a computer engineer set out to change the system. But the system isn’t kind  to the world so why use kind ways is the gang’s funda. Breaking the law to amend the law couldn’t go down well with the law makers who bring on board their sharpest officer, ACP Kaale. Kaale is quick to note that to get to the Ungli Gang, you’ll have to get under the skin of their thinking. Kaale gets in his team, his protégé Nikhil, who is more jealous and in awe of the Ungli Gang than a malicious cop.

There are a couple of great things about the story. It doesn’t meander at all. Even Maya and Nikhil’s love story doesn’t get much screen space because the story doesn’t call for it. The equation between Kaale and Nikhil is endearing and both Sanjay and Emraan have played it to the tee. The film’s humor is its wit and despite being laden with dollops of humor, the film doesn’t trivialize the issues it addresses. The humor is mostly in its dialogues and once again dialogue writer Milap Zaveri is at his best. In parts, it’s a dialogue feast that polishes its scenes. Rensil and Milap have previously worked on 24 and that Zaveri in his dialogues, shows the smoothness in understanding the undertones of each of his characters. Rensil renders flesh and blood to them and their realities seem so true that everytime they use their ‘shaitaani dimaag’ you can’t help but woot for them. It’s impossible to give out too much about the movie, especially the climax but like I said Rensil must be smoking some really good stuff when he wrote the climax. It’s nothing short of brilliant and the final act will be immensely satiating.

Ungli Review: Star Performances

Emraan Hashmi is great. Donning his wicked smile, he plays a lackadaisical cop who finds his real calling in changing the system when he associates with the Ungli Gang. He brings out Nikhil’s dilemma of being torn between what’s right and what’s not. There is a simmering intensity in Nikhil no one except Emraan could have brought out.

Following up close is Randeep Hooda, who is robust and never over the top in this film. He is great in every frame and with the same grit.

Sanjay Dutt shot his last scene with them and he still has his iconic punch to his persona. I miss watching mode of Munnabhai and such roles and the little stint in Ungli will make you crave for it.

Kangana Ranaut, Neil Bhopalan, Angad Bedi were all great in their parts. Kangana does not have a very meaty role in the film but she is radiant and great in the scenes she has.