Rensil D’Silva’s Ungli is a bit like Rang De Basanti. This movie, too, has a group fighting against social issues. The actors tell Divya Kaushik why they call it an “experimental mainstream” film
There was a time when Hollywood was riding high on the success of films that boasted of ‘boy gang’ and dealt with several issues. It was through these films that some directors explained the phenomenon of street rebels, who not always were on a mission to change things in the society. We have had similar films in Bollywood but the gangs here are mostly pitched as role models fighting the social evils. While some such films were able to strike the chord with the audience, a few failed miserably. Among the successful ones was Rang De Basanti (RDB), where a group of friends decides to fight the system after their friend’s death in a MiG-21 crash.
One of the film’s screenplay writers, Rensil D’Silva, has once again written the story about a group of boys who decide to make common men aware of social issues in their own unique way. His forthcoming film Ungli is the story of five friends, who act as vigilantes against corruption and injustice. Four of these five friends were recently here to talk about their film. While here, the four actors, Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Angad Bedi and Neil Bhoopalam, flaunted with great élan their onscreen camaraderie and their middle finger.
like every gang has a leader, Emraan was the leader of this gang, sportingly sharing details about the film. The rest were more than comfortable letting him do all the talking. Emraan said, “It is an experimental mainstream film. It talks about various issues that a common man faces today. It has a lot of humour and issues packed together.” Randeep added that the story may sound a lot like Rang De Basanti “but it doesn’t portray any violence and while the issues in RDB were more serious, here we are talking about problems that we face everyday like potholes on our streets, parking hassles and traffic troubles.”
Emraan said that he had his ‘ungli’ moment six years ago when he wanted to buy a house in a certain society and he was denied just because he is a Muslim. “I am sure many of us have faced similar situation when you are not allowed to buy a house just because you are from a certain community. This makes one question if we are really living in a democratic a society. I decided to fight my case then and I got a lot of support also,” he shared.
Randeep was all praises for PM Narendra Modi for starting a campaign like Swachh Bharat. “Swachh Bharat Campaign is a good example to show how we can change things by inspiring one another. That is what we are trying to do in our film,” he said. Emraan said that a film like Ungli can be a risky proposition for an actor. “But in my case the films with a risky proposition have done wonders to my career. Safe bet has never worked for me. It is always difficult to make such kind of films but they do appeal to the audience,” he ended.