Ganapath – Part 1

Ganapath Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Tiger Shroff, Kriti Sanon, Amitabh Bachchan, Jameel Khan

Director: Vikas Bahl

What’s Good: If your film makes #Adipurush’s VFX feel like a gold standard, believe that’s an achievement in itself

What’s Bad: The ‘Green Screen’ & the machines used to render the film should have gotten a ‘special thanks’ mention in the credits, they deserved more

Loo Break: Your brain would need one!

Watch or Not?: Only if you’re bored of playing video games and instead want to watch one for 134 minutes on the big screen by paying for it after struggling to drive and find parking in a cinema hall

Language: Hindi

Available On: Wherever it is, don’t watch!

Runtime: 2 hours 14 minutes

User Rating:

Copying its homework from Divergent, The Hunger Games, this serves dystopia in the most predictable, cockeyed way building a class-divided wall between the stereotypically cocky ‘ameer’ and majboor ‘gareeb’. Gareebs have their hope in ‘Ganapath’ because the oldie of their community (Amitabh Bachchan) had predicted that a Ganapath would come someday and free them from the oppression of Ameers. He also clearly told them to “Don’t fight till Ganapath comes.”

So, what would the Gareebs do till Ganapath arrives? They start to play wrestling matches to train themselves to defeat the Ameers when the time & Ganapath both finally decide to show up one day. Guddu (Tiger Shroff) is a playboy who enters saying, “Duniya haseeno ka mela, kal raat ko main inke saath bahut khela,” while waking up with 12 girls near him. Guddu is the every other guy you see in those cringey viral reels. But, as you’ve already guessed, Guddu is Ganapath, and he’ll save the Gareebs being their Messiah because why not? We’ve allowed them consuming their cringe to sell us whatever they want to and expect that we will buy it every single time.

Ganapath Movie Review: Script Analysis

Yes, it won’t be easy to believe the writer & director of this one, Vikas Bahl, is the same person who gave us Kangana Ranaut’s Queen, but we shouldn’t forget that also had minds of Chaitally Parmar, Parveez Sheikh & Anvita Dutt backing it. Vikas comes solo this time & it’s not difficult to see why this one hasn’t worked; no, it’s not Vikas’ fault (More on this in the ‘Direction’ paragraph ahead).

The ‘writer’ Vikas Bahl is worse than the ‘director’ because there’s where he takes the audience for granted with a story that is as predictable as Tiger Shroff stripping off his shirt & dancing in his films. The makers have played extremely smart to save some cinematography costs, paying only half to Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti for what he actually deserves. He’s paid low because a huge chunk of the film is a computer-generated video game that lags at times.

Yes, the frames visibly lag and repeat in the award-winning VFX work done by the team. Because, so what it lags, the makers want the jerk to be there so everything shouldn’t look too clean and perfect. Some blemishes here and there because ‘kuch lag ache hai.’ The most Ganapath makers have worked is to find a stylized font for the ‘Disclaimer’ screen at the start.

Ganapath Movie Review: Star Performance

Tiger Shroff has proved to be an asset if picked up for the right films, and even here it’s the same case. He could do well but can’t carry a lousy film solely on his shoulders. The dance and fight are good, but as I’ve said in my previous Tiger film reviews, the ‘saturation level’ has been crossed & the ‘Diminishing Marginal Utility’ has kicked in. The audience will need something more than ‘dance & fight,’ and that’s why a War with him will always work over something like this.

The timing is terrible for Kriti Sanon because a couple of moons ago she collected her National Award for Mimi and here’s Ganapath releasing to prove why she’s still playing safe while choosing ‘shortcuts’ to maintain her presence. She’s earnest with her performance, but it won’t matter amidst all the mess other departments create.

Another thing hinting at the lazy attitude of the makers is how they didn’t even do any R&D on Amitabh Bachchan’s look, designing him to exactly look like his leaked Thugs Of Hindostan look, which was actually a portrait clicked by renowned photographer Steven McCurry.

Director: Guys, we have the legend Amitabh Bachchan working with us; how should we design his character?

Assistants: Sir, here’s his Thugs Of Hindostan’s leaked look.

Director: Say no more!

Jameel Khan’s character in the film is so stupid that he first denies what his bad-boss has asked him to do, asks his colleagues not to inform the bad-boss, and then himself talks about it upon meeting the bad-boss. Gets killed. Honestly, no one should be allowed to live after attempting this level of stupidity.