Gandu (2010)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Yeah! Yeah! You'll say I don't have the intellect to understand the class that is Gandu. You know what, I don't want such an intellect.The film has lewd written all over it. Not just the sex, the whole bloody point seems to be missing. Yes, he's frustrated, he's callous. That in no way makes any sort of sense. Sex is super-imposed every time you start snoozing off on the non-sex scenes. Or when you're about to take off your ear-phones after they have been brutally desensitized by the songs that gives it the tag for "Trying too hard". . Don't waste your time watching this movie. Unless you're in it for senseless fapping sessions you use porn for. Coz trust me, it's porn! Nothing more, might be less!

I could never imagine for the life of me how a pornographic movie like this could ever be made and shown in India and above all conservative Bengal. I mean the Mamata Banerjee and her cronies will of course blame it on the previous government but why did they not ban it when they came to power. The story is OK but the language and sexual depiction is least to say deplorable. This movie is obviously meant for the pseudo intellects and those in the lower stratus of society who have a life similar to Gandu portrays in the film. There is no message or a moral where in the end one should either say no to drugs or denounce it completely. What it does do on the contrary is to glorify it. By all this Im not saying that the story line was bad or the characters didn't do their part well. They did. The music was great and Im impressed with the band that played the songs but the lyrics are worse than you hear on underground tapes made by Snoop Doggy Dog and other like him. The sound was bad and the background noise makes you think that its a home movie shot on a 8 MM camera of the old era.Someone commented about the the flat that Gandu and his mother lived in grand but was sparsely furnished. This was because the flat was provided by Gandu's mother's lover.In conclusion I would like to ask that though I have left Bengal 15 years ago has the mind of the people changed so much that you now show porn movies in cinema halls? This is probably the boldest Indian movie I have seen in my 66 years.

Having stumbled across my review of the director's previous venture Bishh on this site (written some four years ago), there came a natural compulsion to jot this down as well. After the experience of Bishh, my expectations when I finally came across this 'banned' film was not high. The steamy trailer did little to pique much interest although it became a rage among the online (and offline) masses. To be honest, it felt somewhat gimmicky and I was afraid the film was going to turn out to be something similar. Well, it didn't. Gandu is, despite its name, brilliant. The moments of transgression this motion picture dares to make were outlandish, perhaps even 'affected' by a certain sense of the word, but never fails to make a mark. The cinematography is vibrant, the music stimulating. The writing may not have been perfect, but what do I know of perfection... I liked it. There was a profound 'honesty' to the angst (I was tempted to write 'psychedelic honesty') and it was provoking, even without a blunt before the show. Joyraj and Anubrata were perfect to the T & Rii was her best yet. Kamalika was hauntingly natural. The direction had a rudderless precision to it that strikes the right chord, and the interesting play of subtitles didn't harm one bit.I don't know if I can agree with a fellow reviewer calling it one of the best Indian movies ever (although I 'dug' the Midsummer quote), but Gandu is definitely a benchmark as far as Indian Independent Cinema is concerned. It's art, and a fine piece too!

I am not quite aware whether the director was inspired by Andy Warhol's "Chelsea Girls" or not but the film certainly highlights that exact frame mannerism of presenting the story for cinematic viewing like the one presented by Warhol in "Chelsea Girls".The film consists of some erotic scenes which are explicit in nature but most certainly not pornographic in any way whatsoever. The script was innovative for Indian audience though I am pretty sure that majority viewers have not got the basic notion of the script. The cinematography was brilliant must congratulate Kaushik aka Q for that. Lyrics were certainly explosive in nature but truth cannot be denied from it. Acting is good especially by Anubrata(Gandu) and Joyraj(Rickshaw), Rii is hot but she did not got enough leverage to showcase her acting abilities. Komolika(Mother) was good in her role and Shilajit(Das babu)....well he was just the jolly good fellow.I have only one complain that the sound was not recorded properly and at times background score became too noisy to hear the dialouges with proper effect.Must say a good step forward for Indian cinema and kudos to Overdose Joint for thinking out of the box.