A DRAMA OF DREADFUL DISENCHANTMENT

S AH e B B IWI

Au R G ANGST e R

Re T u RNS

STArring: Irrfan, Mahie Gill, Jimmy Sheirgill, Soha Ali Khan and Raj Babbar direCTed By: Tigmanshu Dhulia HHHH

In what could be regarded as a sequence of subliminal comic relief, little-known actor Rajeev Gupta gives this film, suffused in powerhouse performances, its best performance as a slimy politician caught watching porn on his laptop in his office.

The sequence is hilarious and at the same time sobering. While the selfimportant politician’s predicament raises laughter, his hypocrisy also raises issues about a parliamentary crisis that is anything but funny.

Like God and the Devil, the characters in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s sequel to the highly acclaimed Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster work in mysterious, often bizarre ways. Each of the main characters is stricken by a selfdestructive passion bordering on an allconsuming neurosis.

Frozen in a feudal mindset, these dislocated creatures of an aristocratic Diaspora struggle to get out of a world that has abandoned them, by trying desperately to enter the bizarre world of politics. In this process of straddling two worlds, one in the past and the other in a state of ferocious flux, Dhulia’s people end up hurling into a dead-end from a height where the world looks deceptively enticing and inviting.

Torn between desire and self-loathing, the characters in SBGR are emptied-out by their own ambitions. Like the first film, the second one ends with a shocking death and an ironic twist to the drama of the damned and the doomed.

Right at the start we meet Irrfan as Raja Bhaiyya, a small town hoodlum-politician with feudal antecedents who plays the upstartish outsider with such in-house cockiness, warmth and humour that we don’t miss Randeep Hooda who seduced the biwi in the first film.

Mahie Gill as the neglected ravenous biwi again stumbles (literally) on to a role that gives her enough meat to chew on. She savours and embraces her character’s immorality, with Soha’s angelic bride-act performing an arresting counterpoint. Indeed the sequel to Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster moves far ahead in its packaging and technical finesse. The politics and dynamics of relationships trapped in an eerie game of one-upmanship are brought to flickering life in this sequel.

Converging on Irrfan’s character, the script clamps down on the mofussil mindset on politics, women, power and family values - all these aspects of Indian life come together in a hurl of hectic machinations.

Jimmy as the landlord on the skids puts in an exceptionally fine-tuned performance to offset Mahie’s here-thereeverywhere drunken act.

Indeed Mahie pulls out all stops once again to play the kind of slutty royaltywife whose cravings are so apparent they shame anger and embarrass even bystanders.

Dignity is at the lowest ebb and desire at an all-time high as Thakur Aditya Pratap Singh resolves to remarry. He chooses as his bride the vulnerable and pretty Ranjana (Soha). Once Ranjana enters the crumbling corrupted palace, the politics of oneup-womanship between the rejected wife and the new bride take over. You almost wish there was more conflict between Mahie and Soha’s characters to justify the corkscrew finale.