Film Review: Ungli fails to impress

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Kangna Ranaut, Randeep Hooda, Sanjay Dutt, Angad Bedi
Director: Rensil D'silva
Rating: **1/2 

What's it about

Ungli is Rang De Basanti version 2.0. Rensil D'silva who wrote RDB revisits the concept of cleaning up the society of social evils like corruption, red tapism and asking the youth to start a revolution. This time around the story is set around four friends Abhay (Randeep), Maya (Kangna), Goti (Neil) and Kalim (Angad) who seem like regular people with normal jobs, but as night descends they turns into super heroes doing 'ungli' to those who wrong the common man. The concept of doing 'ungli' is mentioned multiple times in the first half, to a point where you want to show the finger to whoever wrote these lines! As the Ungli gang starts getting popular, the police force led by Inspector Kale (Dutt) with the help of a street smart cop Nikhil (Emraan) decide to nab this gang and find out their leader. But as time passes Nikhil gets confused as to where his loyalties lie, does he want to be true to his job or join the Ungli gang ? 

What's hot

There are sparks of some good creative writing in the first half, especially the portions where we get to see the team punish the corrupt guys and find innovative ways of taping them and sharing the videos with media. Emraan stands out in the cast playing Nikhil with utmost honesty. Even though his character seems a bit out of place, he manages to go all out in adding enough zest in showing the internal conflict he goes through. Some of the dialogues will bring a smile to your face, especially the lines that Emraan says. Dance Basanti  ups the tempo of the film giving it a much needed boost! Randeep Hooda and Sanjay Dutt go all out in trying to add life into their half baked characters. 

What's not

Ungli suffers from the curse of the second half. Whatever expectations the film built in the first half come crashing down post interval. Also the romance between Emraan and Kangana seems forced. Just cause these actors have given hit films as a jodi doesn't warrant them to being paired together. The music is strictly average baring Shraddha Kapoor's Dance Basanti item song. Ungli's biggest issue is that it tries to camouflage itself as an entertainer under the pretext of delivering a social message. Rensil tries to do justice to sending a message to the youth and also making a commercially viable project, but fails to do either. 

What to do 

The film has an interesting premise, but the second half and shoddy climax does Ungli to any chances of it leaving a lasting impression on us.