Mirzapur The Movie is much more than a mere extension of the series. It is fast, furious, and… quite fabulous, provided you are not squeamish about the relentless violence; and if you think Dhurandhar was the last word in energized aggression, then this one may just persuade you to change your mind.
The heightened violence of Mirzapur The Movie is surprisingly controlled and strongly barricaded against falling apart under the weight of its own belligerence. The characters are criminals, yes, no two ways about it. But they also have their own peculiar moral code.
The archvillain this time is Babban Babua, a violent opportunist played with ravishing ruggedness by Ravi Kishan. The brutal Babban turns into a mushy loverboy whenever he is in the company of the love of his life, Mumtaz Bibi (Sonali Chauhan). This man is a menace. But he’s also an aashiq, stitching blouses for his beloved. No kidding.
There are other undeveloped, though interesting, women characters, like the assistant to a politician whom her boss sends on a nefarious business meeting with the instruction to wear her saree really low.
The low-lives burn up the screen with their double dealings and treachery. There is virtue in vice, as long as you know where to look. The action scenes are shot with a burnished brio, making the frames look stormy, though not in a showy way.
Sanjay Kapoor’s camera is not willing to be a vigilant bystander. It swings into the action with a possessive swagger. The editing (Wilson Birampuria) could have been more alert. Some scenes, specially an episode shot on a long stretch on the road leading towards the climax, overstay their welcome.
This is not a universe that needs to justify its presence by playing to the galleries. There is enough intrinsic energy and mojo in Mirzapur The Movie to fuel the fun factor without needing to generate funds from the outside.
This is like the UP version of The Godfather, with plenty of indigenous innuendo and aggravated precocity. If the characters are rough and crude, they also have a soft side to them… sometimes.
Both Guddu (Ali Fazal) and Bablu (Jitendra Kumar)—carryovers from the series—have love interests who have them google-eyed and all mushy whenever they are around.
Sadly, though perhaps not surprisingly, given the genre, the lovelorn ladies have little to do. And the peripheral part played by Shweta Tripathy, who was so pivotal to the series, would dismay some. The only female character who gets to have a fulsome presence is Beena Tripathy, a sex addict who moonlights as the Tripathy family’s Bahu. Rasika Duggal’s Beena gets a delectable twist towards the climax. Duggal slays it.
The writing (Puneet Krishna) is strong and sinewy. The action is comic-book crisp. The characters are largely unignorable, even when they make a late entry, like the height-challenged guy (Satendra Soni) who repairs punctured tyres and is a big fan of Munna. Who isn’t? is Munna’s in-character reaction.
Divyendu plays Munna as a motherless attention-seeker, trying to catch his father’s eye by misbehaving. It is a riveting performance, upscaled by the writing which treats the characters with respect when they don’t always deserve it.
Gurmmeet Singh directs the pumped-up material with a controlled swagger. Unlike Dhurandhar which is so enamoured of its own slick (and sick) violence, Mirzapur The Movie never steps back to admire itself. There is no time or place for self-indulgence when the characters love themselves so much.
