07 March,2014 10:15 PM IST | | Shubha Shetty-Saha
Gulaab Gang might look like a feminist film but unfortunately, it is anything but one. This one is as fake as a pink elephant
The best thing about cinema as a medium is that you get to know the filmmaker's intention and mindset, no matter what garb the film is presented in or what the filmmaker wants you to believe. Gulaab Gang might look like a feminist film but unfortunately, it is anything but one.
For one, a film made with even an ounce of sensitivity towards women would never feature a cringe-inducing scene of a man crawling between the legs of a woman. Or a scene where Rajjo seethes with anger at an injustice being committed and soon after, shakes her graceful hip to a random song. Well, all this and more happen in Gulaab Gang.
Madhuri Dixit in Gulaab Gang
Rajjo (Madhuri Dixit) is the brave leader of a pink saree-clad gang of women residing in Madhopur, Uttar Pradesh. Rajjo's cronies go about wielding lathis and breaking limbs to be able to bring several culprits to book and justice to the deserved.
The film seems to hold promise in the beginning when Rajjo, accompanied by her gang, walks into a corrupt officer's office and demands supply of electricity. But soon after, all illusion is broken as she breaks into a song-and-dance routine punctuated by jhatkas and matkas. From then on, Rajjo's battle to save the world seems as false and forced as the menacing men around her and her bete noire, Sumitradevi (Juhi Chawla).
Armed with a script and a dialogue sheet that seemed to have been written in a hurry on the film's sets, Soumik Sen goes about making two of the most talented actresses in the industry, Dixit and Chawla, do things that they seem to be not too sure of themselves. What a waste of an opportunity.
Dixit jumping in the air or rushing in style towards a bunch of bad men might perhaps have worked only if we weren't too busy looking at the loopholes and the lack of attention to detailing. If not changing their body language to suit the role of the rustic women they were playing, wish at least Dixit and her gang had stopped manicuring and shaping their eyebrows to fit into their respective roles. But that perhaps is too much to ask from a film that reduced the immensely talented Chawla into a lip-biting, caricature of a wily politician.
Debutant director Soumik Sen would have been better off making a masala film where a male hero beats up dozens of villain?s cronies and everyone goes home happy. That way, there wouldn't be any false expectations. This one is as fake as a pink elephant.
