Bangistan: Too Lukewarm for a Bang
Sometimes our film makers think that just having a different idea is enough to make a movie, but they forget that there is always a beginning, middle and a climax to a movie and all the three need to gel well to create the required impact. It is more difficult if it is satire.
The issue with the Film Critic turned film maker Karan Anshuman’s debut venture is that the idea was good on 
paper but unfortunately the execution was far from being good.
“Bangistan” takes forward the question asked in “PK” whether religion and sect is really essential for survival or is it just a business of various religious leaders, but in the form of a satire. The story unfolds in an imaginary town “Bangistan”, where Hindus live in the south of “Bangistan” and Muslim towards the north, and their tolerance is limited and every now and then there are communal riots. In this whole mayhem two naïve and relatively unknown youth Hafeez Bin Ali (Ritesh Deshmukh) a call center executive and Praveen Chaturvedi (Pulkit Samrat) a struggling actor become pawn and are brain washed by their respective religious leaders Guruji and Abba (Kumud Mishra in a double role) and are convinced to become suicide bombers and sent to Polland to bomb a World Religious meet. The rest of the movie captures their adventure in Polland…
The story & screenplay written by Punnet Krishna, Sumit Purohit & Karan Anshuman himself is a satire and starts off well when Bangistan is introduced with a lot of tougue and cheek moments from the Bangistan Call Center to the Fc Donald’s outlet. It gives an impression that the movie is going to be different but the screenplay just falls flat once the action shifts to Polland introducing unnecessary characters which make no sense to the overall story. The second half is a disaster with an extremely lukewarm climax which becomes too preachy. . The characters are written without any depth. Overall the idea was good but the execution on paper just does not match the idea, and what we get a half baked movie.
The two actors Ritesh Deshmukh & Pulkit Samrat try to salvage with their performance but the weak writing pull down their earnest effort. Ritesh as a staunch Muslim Hafeez Bin Ali, who disguises as Ishwar Chandra, makes an earnest effort and it shows in his performance which does justice to the character. Pulkit Samrat as Praveen Chaturvedi a staunch Hindu who disguises as a Muslim, brings the required energy to the proceedings and gives an honest performance. Kumud Mishra in a double role of Guruji and Abba is one of the best performances of the movie, he yet again proves his mettle as an actor, who is underutilized. Jacqueline Fernandes as Rosy is wasted and you wonder what was she doing in the movie other than for a single song. Chandan Roy Sanyal as Tamim is again wasted due to weak writing. Arya Babbar as terrorist Zulfi tries to be funny but fails miserably. Other than the performances of Ritesh Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat and Kumud Mishra, rest of the cast fail to create any impression.
Cinematography by Szymon Lenkowski captures the moments well and both in Polland & India. Production design by Amit Ray tries to create the quirkiness of the story through his designs and does well. Editing by Shweta Venkat is very average….
Music by Ram Sampath is extremely forgettable excluding a single song “Hogi Kranti”.
Karan Anshuman’s motive and idea of making the satire was commendable, but the execution was extremely average creating no impact whatsoever….
I will go with Two & a Half Stars…
Movie Rating: 
(2.5 / 5)