Shanghai
2012
🎯 Verdict
✍️ Full Review
Pitobash and what can easily be claimed as Emraan Hashmi's most sincere and grounded performance along with a stout straight shooter Abhay Deol shoulder this socio-political thriller where the proverbial two Indias are connected by sloganeering, rioting, arson, stone pelting, hockey sticks and fake populism while the poor become displaced from a seedy underbelly of Mumbai slums and the real belly of the beast is the shiny ideas of skyscrapers hopping desk to desk from white formal clad officers and politicians. Just like with every other film of Mr. Banerjee, Shanghai starts at a unique juncture of the script and ends with a bleak resolution, a practical one. Apathy, callousness, the sham of developmental progress, inquiries, committees, political opposition, investigation are laid bare with a colluding nexus of business tycoons, administrative officials, law enforcement and political leaders in this grunge of a take on how different standards of living dance with activism and the justice system. How very bleak and lost cause it is to watch a few people trying to stand up to the elites, the people who run the world when most of the poor folks dance around the pyre of their own making at funeral of their own future on the tune of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai". Dibakar Banerjee as always shows why he is rare amongst a few daring filmmakers. The tracking shots were remarkable. In terms of the depiction of the dark aspects of criminalization of politics and politicization of criminals, the way Shanghai flows through its picture prefect realism is quite powerful, the downside is- it adds nothing noteworthy when it comes to revealing the investigative and larger conspiracy part of the plot. It just doubles down on the second half of the serious traits of Khatta Meetha's theme.