Quite rangeela

Guddu rangeela

Staring: Ronit Roy, Arshad Warsi, Amit SadhAditi Rao Hydari

Rated: 6/10

Smearing a serious issue with comic situations and characters can be a messy game, often ridiculous and sometimes counter productive. So, to say that Guddu Rangeela tackles the khaps and honour killings with comic relief is sure to put you off. But to director Subhash Kapoor’s credit, for most the film, the balance is near perfect.

At the same time, this comedy-social issue mix serves a complex purpose for him — it manages to steer him away from the inevitable preachiness which would otherwise have burdened a movie on such kind and it also gives his audience the breathing space to traverse through the killing fields of Haryana where women are owned, disowned and killed by father, brothers, husbands — and of course khaps — at the drop of an emotion.

Kapoor’s caper unfolds in one such village area of Haryana where the opening song sung by the kohl-lined Arshad (Rangeela) Warsi sets the tone of the film. The satire comes and goes in the film but the pace is steadied by Kapoor to a point where you fell neither rushed nor inert and that’s the best part of this halka phulka film on a bhari bharkam issue.

At a function organised by the local tehsildar whose son has managed to get a Kenyan visa, Rangeela sings and gyrates to a modern bhajan — aaj raat mujko mata ka email aaya hai, mata ne mujhe facebook pe bulaya hai’ while his associate Amit (Guddu) Sadh gathers all the money and jewellery information of the household to sell it to the crooks for a sum.

You soon learn the money is for a cause close to Rangeela’s heart and that brings in the absolutely menacing and overbearing character of Billu Pehelwan played to perfection by Ronit Roy who even on TV tries to be menacing even as a good man! Here he gets a level playing field and as the voice of the khap and a relentless killer machine of errant lovers mostly, he even manages to intimidate his Chief Minister who allows him to continue killing but with a request that it should be away from public eye!

The film tackles the honour killings issue alongside the completely male dominated khaps and their inhuman penalties but Kapoor makes sure that this does not completely consume the film. Warsi, as usual is at his best walking the screen with the style of a veteran. Amit Sadh looks the Haryanvi chikna with “degi-legi” mentality Ronit Roy holds you in fear with amazing ease. Aditi Rao Hydari though looks too royal and polished to be part of a crime screwball story and is far removed from being the real Haryanvi belle — at least now that Kangana Ranaut has told us all about Haryanvis, it is difficult to believe in Aditi.

Overall though the film grows into gravitas by and by though it lacks the complete fun and frolic of a Phas Gaye Re Hai Obama.