Anurag Kashyap’s Nishaanchi plays more like a free-flowing OTT series than a tightly plotted film — a quirky heist thriller with satirical songs, scattered reels, rustic one-liners, and moments of lunacy
A still from ‘Nishaanchi’. pics/AFP, Instagram
Nishaanchi
U/A: Crime, drama
Dir: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Aaishvary Thackeray, Vedika Pinto
Rating: **
As a film, is Nishaanchi, niche? I think every effort and more has been made to ensure the answer to that question is a big no.
To be fair, in the context of Hindi films, simply the existence of songs and dances assists most movies from ducking the suicidal allegation of being anything boringly dark, or sufficiently art-house. This film has a pretty peppy soundtrack, alright.
And not in a mukhda-antara-melody sort of way. More as a send-up.
Take the group of unlikely qawaals wearing red shades, purple jackets over green kurtas, at a “nationalist akhada”, singing Dear Country with a stress between the country’s two syllables, like a bhajan in English to the motherland, being her brave sons! The tune shifts to Manoj Kumar’s Mere Desh Ki Dharti, at some point.
The sheer ludicrousness of it hits you in mysterious ways that you feel okay to watch this sheer lunacy later in the picture, all over again.
It’s a bit like the Channel V spoofs that only those from the ’90s vintage are likely to recall. Or, for that matter, the movie’s catchy, comic-book title sequence that, if I’m not mistaken, is also its trailer.
Likewise, while Nishaanchi opens with the azaan, which is good omen — the sequence that follows is that of an amateur bank robbery, establishing its genre, that is, a heist thriller, after all.
There’s a hero (Aaishvary Thackeray), who has a twin. There’s a heroine (Vedika Pinto) who, apparently, has agency, so to say, even if she’s drawn to her stalker.
Except, for a film primarily about the hero, hence, heroine, villain, mother, I can’t find myself getting glued to any. Why’s that? It’s a good question.
I don’t have an answer. But, hypothetically speaking, I’m willing to make a guess.
What if, for a mainstream entertainer, there was a well-known actor for the hero, instead.
You could, first, be viscerally drawn to his range, based on past performances — morphing into a Kanpuriya sadak-chhaap hero, in a double role, kicking ass on the frickin’ streets, pushing personal envelope, if nothing else.
Fully adds to the damn character.
To give a random example: Take Animal (2023), for whatever you thought of it. Take Ranbir Kapoor out of it. It’s not half the film it is.
The debutant, for all the obvious talents (Aaishvary Thackeray; no knock) hardly exudes the main character charm to captivate you with his first-time presence alone.
The reason’s not him. It’s the casting for a supposedly ‘commercial’ picture like this, fully centred on the brave hero, or rather two of him. Takes getting used to; let alone to root for. Somehow, television handles this handicap better.
Which is probably why it’s more fun when the same lead, shorn of similar expectations, is in his teens, avenging his dad’s death. It’s a kid, you get it.
The boy goes to jail. He returns, and joins the local thugs. Is that what the film’s about? That’s a better question: What’s the film about; or should it be about anything at all?
I watched it with my thoughts alternating between scattered reels, ad-libs, improvisations, casual asides, rustic one-liners, running like ‘pota’ (gunk) from a runny nose, going, “Hey, that’s funny!”
“Okay, that’s a great scene,” “Alright, what’s happening, now,” “I’m sorry, what’s going on, again,” “Ah, good touch”… Feels like free verse, rather than a film, that’s tightly plotted.
Somewhere between shots/scenes that equal movies, and network TV serials, more interested in gently meandering coverage of events alone, is obviously the OTT series, that seamlessly allows for both.
Which is why, after three hours of the same, inside a dark hall, staring at my Uber, I had to eventually ask, “Sorry, why is Nishaanchi not a frickin’ series, again?” Usually, one asks the same question, in reverse, when directors, more often, stretch movie scripts into series, instead (example, Farzi).
Nishaanchi is written-directed by Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, Dev.D). Over two decades, given his own influence over Indian filmmakers, besides film buffs of course, it’d be fair to say, Kashyap is Kool Aid himself. Fairer still to say, he doesn’t drink it.
That is, if you merely look at the range of genres he’s traversed, even lately — sports drama (Mukkabaaz), psychological thriller (Psycho Raman), romance (Manmarziyaan, Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat), magical realist (Choked), sci-fi thriller (Dobaaraa)…
Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) remains his confirmed masterpiece. Did he force drink that Kool Aid? Can see; but can’t say, for sure (yet).
Yup, there’s the mother, who looks as old as the son (brilliant Monika Pawar, in place of Richa Chadha), or the inter-generational villain, like Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Ramadheer Singh (Kumud Mishra), or the cop Mohd Zeeshan Ayub, who I thought was speaking like Piyush Mishra, and the kids Babloo, Dabloo, who could well be cousins of Babua (Perpendicular), Definite…
But Gangs of Wasseypur was majestic in its sweep, patiently narrating the history of Bihar’s coal belt, without the unnecessary trappings of a three-act structure. It would’ve been the greatest OTT show ever, was it to open in 2025. There was no Netflix then.
Nishaanchi is only half way through. The second part is post-interval, rather than a sequel. Hard to bet, if it’ll come together as satisfyingly as Gangs 2.
But then again, we are only three episodes of the six down, so far. I’m totally down, for the next lot — ideally, working from home! Or, well, theatre again.
*YUCK **WHATEVER ***GOOD ****SUPER *****AWESOME
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