Bangistan Movie Review: Bungle-istan

A couple of months back, Welcome To Karachi had tried to extract humour out of a sensitive issue like terrorism and had fallen flat on its face. That in itself should have been a hint for other filmmakers, but yet, Excel Entertainment decided to go ahead with Bangistan, an absurd tale about Hindu-Muslim relations and suicide bombings.

Set in the fictional country of Bangistan somewhere in Asia, where the north side of the country is populated by Muslims while the south part is occupied by Hindus, Bangistan revolves around two fanatics- Hafeez Bin Ali (Riteish Deshmukh) and Pravin Chaturvedi (Pulkit Samrat), who are sent on a mission to blow themselves up at an international conference on religion in Krakow, Poland.

In order to avoid suspicion and detection, Hafeez masquerades as a right-wing Hindu while Pravin pretends to be a Muslim and naturally, both end up in the same inn in Krakow to prepare for their mission.

In the days leading to the mission, the two lads bond and when the time comes to pull the trigger, the situation gets complicated when each discovers the other's deception. Will the two manage to bury the hatchet?

Like mentioned earlier, issues like terrorism and religion are quite touchy subjects and it requires a certain finesse to deal with them, especially when weaving a comedy and the film disappoints majorly. To its credit, the film does have a couple of funny moments, like the one where the Russian arms dealer advertises his products with an audio-visual reminiscent of the late night telemarketing ads.

However, by and large, director Karan Anshuman decides to rely on clichéd dialogues and situations to put his point across. If that was not all, Deshmukh and Samrat make matters worse with their pathetic acting. Deshmukh still seems to be suffering an Ek Villain hangover while Pulkit opts to ham his way throughout the film. The reviewer is still trying to figure out what was Jacqueline Fernandez doing in the film, so let's not even go there. The only saving grace is Chandan Roy Sanyal as the hustler cabbie Tamim, who evokes a few chuckles.

Another pompous mistake Karan makes is peppering his story with references to other films and filmmakers that will confuse an Average Joe and irritate those who get the references. In one scene, Pulkit tries to pull a Travis Bickle by looking in the mirror and snarling, “Humse baat kar rahe ho?” while in another scene, Tamim introduces a cop of Oriental descent by calling him 'Wai Kar Wong'.

The music is quite forgettable and the climax is clichéd and preachy enough to make you cringe. All in all, a thoroughly avoidable fare.