Gangaajal

I never expected to be impressed by this movie, going by the cover which had the regular in-your-face expressions from an outraged hero and a heroin with sadness written all over her face. It seemed like just another good-cop bad-guy movie.

It was pleasantly surprising for me. Ajay Devgan, who is the only interesting and important character in this movie has given a more-than-decent performance. The song are minimal and this keeps the movie riveting for most part. The role of the villain is weak and did not develop into anything significant.

However the dialogue delivery of AD and his no nonsense style of acting (or of the director) adds to the effect of the movie. The final dialogue: when AD has the villains under his feet and whole city is all set to burn them, AD says "I am not protecting them from you, but I am protecting you from them. It is my duty to make sure you don't descend to the level of these villains. Jaisi Janatha, Waisi Police. If you are corrupt, what do you expect the police to be?"

It is overall a good movie to Watch. A similar movie, Shool, was made by Ram Gopal Verma with Manoj Bajpai. It is not nearly as entertaining as this.

According to me, this one of the best adaptation of heroes journey in a Bollywood movie. I definitely got a dollars triology vibe from the movie. What I liked most about the movie is the overall authenticity in the movie, the dilouges feel very natural, the performance by the actors, the cinematography style, the music, the geography, all these things literally take us to the place in which the movie is set in.

The other big positive is the characterisation of the hero, we really root for him and want him to win in the end.

The writing and the characterisation of all the characters are really good. The geography in which the story is set in is itself a character in the movie, the village, the people in the village all feel so real.

The theme of the movie is about conflict between crime and law, how it affects the society. This is communicated amazingly throughout the movie.

Definitely a must watch for hindi cinema lovers

8/10.

Firstly I must say I was very, very impressed with the realism of the whole atmosphere throughout the film, the initial setting is enough to engage your whole mind to the screen. Well, what makes the film shine so much? there are about several reasons.Ajay Devgan gives his very best performance here, as he did in 'Legend of Bhagat Singh'. Devgan manages to capture every emotion possible, by a man who is a policeman but also a human being, Gracy Singh does a decent work as well, despite having very brief appearance. Apart from Devgan's powerhouse performance, it's practically the whole cast that deserves to be applauded for doing justice to their various roles as well, above all Manoj Joshi and Yashpal Sharma deliver brilliant performances that just breathes even more life into the film. There is not a single cast actor who hasn't done any justice to his character, therefore 'Gangajal' is a small masterpiece and one of the rare gems of Bollywood drama. because of its honest team work by the whole cast and crew. A film you simply cannot ignore. Without a doubt, it's a 9.7 out of 10!

Movie is amazing, the movie depicts what actual liberalism stands for. What democracy stands for, and depicts the advantage of living in a civilize form of government. If we do not take care of the values that make us unique we can turn into savages as well. We do have such tendencies. There are on going debates about criminal justice system being broken in democracies. The golden rule of law, rich people have better chances of getting away with a crime. Although film shows that law or constitution is not weak in sense, but it is lack of good citizenship by us that makes it weak. Faith in the civilization, law, constitution, and democracy. The rights like freedom of press, and speech. The movie is all about that. It is finely depicted. Prakash Jha is an admirable director and good story teller. Ajay Devgan's enaction of the main role is wonderful. He deserved accolades or awards for his role. It was played with maturity and sensibility. He didn't go over the top as most actors do when they get a powerful role. He played it real and controlled. Gracy singh was OK. Mukesh Tiwari was quite good too, he wasn't loud as his other movies, he was quite controlled too. Mohan Joshi played a typical villain, he did it probably millions of time. Yashpal Sharma too was simply just OK. There was nothing amazing to do for villains other than what they did in other movies. The cop gang was good too. The jail cell incident gave me goosebumps because it was based on real incident, it was barbaric. it was funny to me how they only had one curse word allowed in the whole movie. haha. The movie was not just a cop movie about anti corruption. The message hidden in it was far greater. It was about a death of human civilization, and how when it dies the fundamental rights are crushed with it. The rights of freedom of press and freedom of objection to majority. Movie showed transformation democracy to anarchy back to democracy at the end. It was simply great, I didn't expect to be such a good movie but it is. Faults in society is curable, but the cure starts within ourselves first.

The two mistakes: The script turns out faulty at two instances. The first one is Magni Ram's suspension and its reversal. The second instance is why Officer Amit Kumar did not attend Apoorva's wedding until the phone call was made to him.

The reason why movie outshines: The movie is how police and people of Tezpur turn violent against crime in their area, after posting of Officer Amit. In further run what is described is his journey on how He acts out to save people from becoming criminal. The speech that he gives at the end is phenomenal. One of the factors that I would like to put light on is local press described in the movie. How society runs is captured well.

Final Verdict: The movie highlights the essence of democracy. One must definitely watch if they like serious cinema.