Did a popular ongoing series on Prime Video require an ‘untold’ chapter made for the big screen? Some would say it’s unnecessary. I didn’t mind, because as someone who started watching the show only recently and got instantly hooked from the first episode, I was curious to learn what it intended to do, especially after being privy to the information that “Mirzapur: The Movie” occurs somewhere between the first season’s events.
Unlike what Francis Ford Coppola did with “The Godfather Saga” which was basically all the three films combined with unseen, deleted footage that fans would’ve liked to see in the original version, the makers of “Mirzapur: The Movie” makers opted to shoot an entire movie from scratch (or were some portions shot in 2018 and added to the new ones?), narrating a set of events while also not straying further away from the continuity of the 2018 series timeline — as an entirely new episode made for the big screen, with a duration of under 210 minutes.
Perhaps it wasn’t necessary, but the movie doesn’t exist just for the sake of it. The decision to cast Jitendra Kumar as Bablu (previously played by Vikrant Massey) may cause a bit of awkwardness and takes a while to get used to, but being the natural performer that Jitendra is, he slips so effortlessly into the role that after a point, it stops being awkward. This recasting also fits neatly with the how the actors look the same and are fully in character, despite it being eight years since the first season and all the characters (the surviving ones, that is) have progressed into far more chaotic and darker events since then.
“Mirzapur: The Movie” is framed against the pressure of the impending elections faced by Kaleen Bhaiyya (Pankaj Tripathi) and his conflict with politician JP Yadhav (Pramod Pathak). This pressure, then, becomes a perfect segue for the makers to bring in another power-hungry antagonist, Babban Babua (Ravi Kishan), who is vying for the Mirzapur throne just as much as Munna (Divyenndu) and Rati Shankar Shukla (Shubrajyoti Barat).
Babban proves himself to be a sufficiently formidable adversary with his own backstory that makes him look like a memorably deceitful character from one of the Sergio Leone “Dollars” trilogy films. Ravi Kishan brings the right amount of charisma and derring-do to the part of a man who has his own weaknesses — to begin with, his romantic liaison with a young singer-dancer, Mumtaz (Sonal Chauhan). Since we already know the fate of the major characters in the series, the inclusion of another threat doesn’t so much amp the intensity as providing opportunities for the introduction of another intense character and an intense backstory shared by one of the main female characters in the series, presumably someone who could have a large role in the upcoming fourth season.
But putting that development aside and focusing on Babban alone, his arrival brings forth a never-before-seen shift in the dynamic between Munna, Babu and Guddu (Ali Fazal is, once again, a delight as the angsty, adrenaline-seeking manchild). We see a different side of Munna that we never saw in the series, and it adds an extra layer of complexity to the personality of this spoiled rotten child.
As a cinematic side-quest adventure involving enough bloodshed and dark humour, “Mirzapur: The Movie” largely works and is undoubtedly a solid addition to the franchise. That said, it isn't without speed-breakers. We begin to feel the effects of the lengthy duration after a point, which wasn’t the case with the episodes of the series, even when I was bingeing it. The occasional hiccups appear in the form of seemingly overstretched areas — to the point of inducing drowsiness — act as speed-breakers. A lengthy conversation involving Babban and Yadav in one of the pre-interval scenes. The pre-climactic long road trip that seems to go on forever.
The film is already 15 mins over three hours. And when you combine this with the 40-min (total) ads theatres like PVR and Cinepolis run, the experience becomes slightly excruciating. What’s even stranger is the movie ending, and before we open the exit door, another important scene comes on that forces us to stay and watch the whole thing. Wasn’t there a better way to construct the whole thing?
Film: Mirzapur: The Movie
Director: Gurmmeet Singh
Cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Divyenndu, Jitendra Kumar, Ravi Kishan, Rasika Dugal, Abhishek Banerjee, Sushanth Singh, Shriya Pilgaonkar
Rating: 3.5/5
