Gafla – Not hard hitting but worth a dekhko
Gafla – Not hard hatting but worth a dekhko
It’s funny writing a review for a film for which there has practically been no marketing (due to lack of budget perhaps). You run the danger that the review may be read by more people, than the number of people who might have seen the film.
Sunday Night was time to see movie (www.gafla.com) that I had been wanting to see. As expected and usual, most of my friends decided not to give debutant director Sameer hanchate’s attempt at exposing the Stock Market Scam, that broke out in the country couple of years back by famous/infamous Harshad Mehta, a chance.
The low budget hindi film, made on a shoe string budget of 2-3 Crores, which the director made by literally mortgaging his house, and his father’s nursing home and god knows what lot of tribulations, deserved a viewing for the mammoth effort gone into its making.
After sitting through 2 hours of the hindi film (Gafla meaning Scam in bambayya hindi), I realised that the debutant director’s film is pretty good. Far better than the usually stupid films coming out of Bollywood.
Even though I’m not much into Stock Market/Shares/Mutual Funds/Investments etc, this film does arrest me with its attention and convinved me. Pretty much depicting the rise and fall of the the hero Subodh MEHTA (Vinod Sherawat – who comes in TV Serials and who played Karishma Kapoor’s husband in Zubeida and divorces her later) in the form of Harshad Mehta. How an ordinary middle class chawl living Gujju man starts reading magazines and analysis of trade assets of Companies. He comes to the BSE with the intention of joining the share buying/selling bandwagon and is taken under the tutelage of an experienced Stockbroker.
The scene in which he asks for work from the senior StockBroker and attempts to gain sympathy by having his chawl girlfriend Vidya (Shruti Ulfat- Raaz, Aitraaz) pose as his ‘forced-to-work-wife’, evokes a smile.
Subodh Mehta, starts humbly, making a couple of mistakes in learning the tricks of the trade. Then slowly he does make intelligent and calculated risks. And begins to slowly earn pretty much more a couple of thousands with the help of his friend and senior stock sub broker (Brijendra Kala in a brilliant and witty character role). He gets his sister married off, and shifts to a new house, still wanting to ’stand on his feet’ before he can ask Vidya’s hand in marriage from her alcoholic but good hearted/frustrated loser father.
Then the sensex dives, courtsey the big shark – Thakur, who would rather play the stock market to his whims and his profit without bothering about the millions of investors. Subodh is frustrated and doomed. His house and his family jewels are to be mortgaged (very much like our very own director of the film). His father passes away.
He starts off his own company ‘Grow Further’ (ala Grow More by Harshad mehta), and invites independent investors who want sound advice in investing the stock market. Slowly, that company grows in size and attracts investors from all the strata of the society. His friend Aditya lakhia (Kachra in Lagaan) who quits his PSU job and joins him, the bai, ordinary middle class people who dream of making more money rather than putting their money in banks etc etc.
The company grows big and goes through many peaks and troughs. In a stage of bankrupcy, Subodh is forced to marry his sexy english speaking assistant (Purva Parag – who pays more attention to her make up than her dialogue delivery), leaving his dreams of marrying his sweetheart Vidya crushed.
Then the company rises again, much to the chagrin of the biggies. His stature becomes challenging and frustrating to the ego of the biggies and eventually they vindicate him in a 400 crore rupees scam, and get his office to be raided. It’s a classic case of Crab mentality, with the biggies (Bear and Bull in Stock market lingo) becoming insecure to Subodh’s success. Subodh, despite his efforts, unwillingly is forced to become the sole ‘bali ka bakra’ of the disaster and of course is jailed ….
The movie is essentially a journey film, very much like Nayagan, Iruvar, Trishul, Satya (one man comes into an environment as an outsider and slowly begins to rule it, attains a peak, and eventually is fallen due to circumstances beyond his control).
Personally I like journey films and therefore I was keen on watching this film. This movie didn’t dissapoint me. In fact I was more dissappointed by the marketing of the film. A sunday night, in a multiplex in mumbai, and then hall had only about 50 people (despite its 400 odd capacity).
Performances are worth a mention. Vinod Sherawat is pretty believable, although he could’ve done a better job. Shruti Ulfat is pretty good. If you found Gayatri Joshi in Swades as hot, trust me your gonna like Shruti Ulfat too. Watch out for the wedding scene where she meets Vinod after a long time. She says something with mirth in the beginning, and then becomes kind of serious , and at the end of conversation is almost at tears. It’s a pity theater actors like her are not given much footage in the film industry !!!
Vikhram Gokhle(father of Ash in Hum Dil De chuke Sanam) plays a special appearance which makes you wonder why should hindi cinema has ignored regional (marathi) talented actors like him. Although I would seriously advise him to loose a bit of weight for his next screen apperance, and I am praying he comes on screen ASAP.
The film actually belongs to the director, who has managed to make a pretty good film on such low budget contraints (probably 1/20′th of Fanaa/Krishhh/KANK). His sets do not look tacky, the stock market actually looks like one with tons of brokers screaming all through out, the use of Time lapse Camera (like Tanhai song in Dil Chahta Hai) to emphasise the pulse/speed/life of the financial capital of the country.
And as a person non intrested in shares/stocks, director Sameer Hanchate manages to convince the average cinegoer. Alas if the media was a little more judicious, or if more money had been spent on marketing the film, or perhaps if a star had been taken in the film, may be the film would have created more buzz rather than just the tagline -‘the first film on the stock market scam’ …
I know for sure that, half of the readers must have not even heard of Gafla, and the remaining half will make an effort to go to the nearest cinema hall for this film, but that movie would be down the cinema halls by then.
Gafla will remind u of well made but low profiles like Main meri patni aur Woh, Sehar, Haasil. But alas it will not have a ‘Chandni Bar’ kind of an impact.
C – Nevertheless, Congrats and all the best for your future cinematic endavours Mr Sameer Hanchate.
P.S you can check out more about the movie at www.gafla.com
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
- Gokhale has been given some of the crappiest roles in Bollywood. But then most of the character actors roles are written with crap definition.
@karthik.. but you gotta understand that Gafla the name itself sounds like some Karan Razdan movie, to complicate it, there was no promotion, so, everyone would think it was a semi-porn.
that’s a pretty exhaustive revie Karthik! Thanks…I did think it might be interesting…just havent made the effort to explore more…will do so now…
@Oz – Agree with u … Here is one talented actor who hasnt been given good roles.
Ones i remember are Agneepath, Hum Dil De chuke Sanam and Tum Bin
@Sumeet – Can’t blame you mate …. Any body who hasnt seen the promos/advertisement will think like that the first time he hears a name. Its funny how distrustful and cynical we’ve become of bollywood. But then bollywood doesnt give those many good movies for us to give them the ‘benefit of doubt’ do they ????
@Chandni – Yeah see the movie if u can … and pls come back with more on Shruti Ulfat’s performance. She is looking really WOW in the film
@KK – Thanks for the detailed review mate! Waiting game for the dvd begins.
@Sumeet – Gafla does sound pondy if we don’t know the context – but so does sensex.
http://www.gafla.com/promos/teaser1.wmv
The problem with Gafla wasn’t lack of funds. In fact, the film was made on a very decent budget and interestingly,it was selected for The Times BFI 50th London Film Festival 2006.The maketing was at fault but one can’t blame the marketing entirely considering none of the big dalies and mags didn’t find it interesting enough for review. So it’s the Dons and Jann-e-Manns that make news.
Mohan Gokhle had substantial role in a TV serial Uddan, made by Kavita Chaudhary( lalita ji of surf ad.).
and he had quite big role in Mukul Anand’s Khuda Gawah also.
But he started playing elder’s role at quite young age. that might have affected his chances in hindi films as they type casted him with middle age men’s role. and above this his fat physique which may stop directors to think about variety of roles. He has to play a roles where his character is not shown to do much physical work.