MOVIE REVIEW – SHORGUL (2016)

Today we are here with a review of a movie namely SHORGUL based on 2013 Mujaffarnagar riots between two religious communities. It is co-directed by Pranav Kumar Singh & Jitendra Tiwari.

Shorgul starts in an exciting manner when a mysterious man meets an unidentified woman in the middle of the night. They exchange words and a concealed weapon is handed over to the woman.

But the very next moment, an item song begins, which proves that directors Jitendra Tiwari and P Singh prefer catering to the masses rather than focusing on the story.

Like most political dramas, SHORGUL is set in UP. It revolves around, how every now and then, Indian politicians use Hindu-Muslim rivalry for their vote-banks. In this story, an innocent friendship between a Hindu boy, Raghu (Aniruddh Dave) and a Muslim girl Zainab (Suha Gezen) becomes fuel for the local politicians to raise an issue.

It shows how politicians like Ranjit Om (Jimmy Shergill) and Alam Khan (Narendra Jha) influence people’s minds with such thoughts, just to get support in elections and how their speeches affect the common people. Also, how a handful of political figures such as Chaudhary (Ashutosh Rana) who believe in a humanitarian way are not tolerated well in society.

Although the film attempts to bring up issues such as land acquisition, beef ban in Uttar Pradesh and suppression of the minorities but doesn’t carried it well. One wonders why the writers even bothered bringing up these topics in such a superficial manner. But despite all this, SHORGUL is reduced to be a weak melodrama with its bloody communal clashes between the sword-wielding and ‘trishul-dhaari’ communities.

Dialogues of the movie seem to have been inspired from all possible 80s films and are dramatic enough to give you a bad headache. Majority of the dialogues are heavy and the mention of bigger issues such as Kashmir, Pakistan are hurled without any context every now and then. The writing is extremely careless and it is very senseless that such provocative dialogues against communities are being used for creating mere drama in film.

The movie’s direction is extremely amateurish and it is clearly seen in most of the frames. There are some scenes with hasty camera movements & one of the worst scenes in the film is where one character is stabbed on a bridge with an iron rod and instead of screaming or any reaction, he is seen hurling dialogues like ‘Zainab Ka Khayal Rakhna’. This is hilarious. Editing of the film is also poor.

Star Peformance:-

Jimmy Shergill as Ranjit Om has looked impressive. He puts a life like character in the movie but it is sad that his acting talents are a complete waste for what the film is.

Ashutosh Rana as always being a brilliant actor he is puts up a great act as Chaudhary.

Rest of the actors are looked ordinary.

Final words:

Very ordinary film, nothing to watch.

My ratings for this movie is 1.5 out of 5 stars.

So keep following the page, good day till the next review

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