Bangistan is a 2015 Indian black comedy satirical film directed by Karan Anshuman and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani starring Riteish Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat while Arya Babbar, Tomasz Karolak and Chandan Roy Sanyal in supporting roles.[1] Jacqueline Fernandez appeared in a cameo. In the film, Hafeez and Praveen, two brainwashed suicide bombers, go on a mission to blast a meeting of religious leaders in Poland. However, due to a turn of events, they change their minds about the bombing.
| Bangistan | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Karan Anshuman |
| Written by | Puneet Krishna Sumit Purohit Karan Anshuman |
| Produced by | Ritesh Sidhwani Farhan Akhtar |
| Starring | Riteish Deshmukh Pulkit Samrat Jacqueline Fernandez Arya Babbar Tomasz Karolak Chandan Roy Sanyal |
| Cinematography | Szymon Lenkowski |
| Music by | Ram Sampath |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | AA Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 135 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
The film was scheduled to release on 31 July 2015 but got delayed to 7 August 2015.[2][3] It was banned by Pakistan's Central Board of Film Censors for depicting suicide bombers.[4]
Plot
editThe story is set in the fictitious country Bangistan, which suffers from a large number of terrorist attacks.
Hafeez Bin Ali is a Muslim in Bangistan who works at a call center. One day he quits his job as he can no longer tolerate the humiliation from customers and visits a local Muslim community. However, the leader of the community brainwashes him and persuade him to conduct terrorist attack at World Religious Conference in Poland, by convincing him that he will go to heaven if he dies in a suicide bomb blast. To cover his identity and his relationship with the leader, Hafeez uses a fake identity to enter Poland—a Hindu named Ishwarchand Sharma.
Praveen Chaturvedi is a Hindu who shows a lot of respect to his god Guruji and attacks anyone who insults his beloved god. For political reasons, Guruji asks Praveen to conduct terrorist attack at the World Religious Conference in Poland, the same event that Hafeez is going to conduct blast at. To cover his identity and relationship with Guruji, Praveen also uses a fake identity to enter Poland—a Muslim named Allah Rakha Khan.
Praveen and Hafeez meet at the airport when entering Poland, and later happen to live in the same hotel, so they befriend each other. When they go to a bar, they meet an Indian girl Rosie and both fall in love with her.
Hafeez goes to a Polish arm dealer and buys bombs from him, while Praveen buys bombs from a Chinese dealer. They both assemble bombs in their respective hotel rooms. Praveen accidentally sees Hafeez's bomb and gets to know his intention, and believes Hafeez is from his own team, so he reveals his intention to Hafeez too. They work together to make the terrorist attack plan. In the process, they begin to realize their bosses brainwashed and used them, but they did not give up their plans.
They break up a fight with each other after they reveal real identity to each other—Ishwarchand Sharma, a disguised Hindu, is actually a Muslim, while Allah Rakha Khan, a disguised Muslim, is actually a Hindu. They get angry after knowing each other is from a hostile religion and pretended to be a friend. During their fight, they accidentally set off the bomb, causing a huge blast in the hotel, and they both get injured and arrested for that.
Learning their arrest from news, both their bosses decide to go to Poland to conduct the attack by their own. Hafeez's boss sends a killer to kill Hafeez in the hospital, making Hafeez totally realize he was used. Police saves Hafeez from the killer and transfers him and Praveen to jail. On their way to jail, they escape from police. Hafeez decides to stop his boss from bombing the Conference and save lives. He also tries to persuade Praveen to abolish his plan and save lives too. Praveen pretends to have agreed, but is actually still in contact with Guruji to conduct the attack.
At the Conference, Hafeez catches Praveen red handed when the latter is tying bombs around his body. They break up a fight again and Hafeez successfully persuades Praveen to abolish his plan for real. Another bomber sent by Hafeez's boss tried to set an explosion at the event, but is stopped and taken down by Hafeez. Hafeez takes his bomb. However, the crowd did not see Hfaeez taking bomb from him but only see Hafeez has bomb in hand. They think Hafeez is a terrorist and going to making a blast. They begin to panic, and police arrive to arrest Hafeez.
In the chaos, the bomber takes the bomb back from Hafeez, Hafeez and Praveen fight with him to get the bomb back. The bomber sets off the bomb, but Hafeez and Praveen sacrifice themselves by holding the bomb and breaking out the window and jumping from the building. However, they survived the blast as it was not powerful enough to kill them. The Polish arm dealer saw the scene from TV and laughs out: Must be a Chinese bomb. He is right.
Cast
edit- Ritesh Deshmukh as Hafeez Bin Ali/Ishwarchand Sharma
- Pulkit Samrat as Praveen Chaturvedi/Allah Rakha Khan
- Jacqueline Fernandez as Rosie
- Kumud Mishra as Guru/Abba
- Chandan Roy Sanyal as Tamim Iqbal
- Arya Babbar as Zulfi
- Tomasz Karolak as Peter Jackson
- Tom Alter as the Imam
- Zachary Coffin as Stanislav the Polish Cop[5]
- Saharsh Kumar Shukla
Music
editThe soundtrack of the album is composed by Ram Sampath, and lyrics written by Puneet Krishna. The Soundtrack Album of this film was released on July 11, 2015.
| No. | Title | Singers | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Ishq Karenge" | Sona Mohapatra, Abhishek Nailwal & Shadab Faridi | 04:26 |
| 2. | "Hogi Kranti" | Ram Sampath & Abhishek Nailwal | 03:08 |
| 3. | "Saturday Night" | Aditi Singh Sharma, Benny Dayal, Neeraj Shridhar and Janusz Krucinski | 03:40 |
| 4. | "Maula" | Ram Sampath & Rituraj Mohanty | 04:45 |
| 5. | "Meri Zidd" | Ram Sampath & Siddharth Basrur | 03:24 |
| 6. | "Is Duniya Se Ladna Hai" | Suraj Jagan & Abhishek Nailwal | 02:39 |
| 7. | "Ishq Karenge (EDM Version)" | Sona Mohapatra, Abhishek Nailwal & Shadab Faridi | 04:12 |
| Total length: | 18:20 | ||
Marketing and release
editThe film was released on 7 August. Mike McCahill gave it three stars [6] in The Guardian. Bangistan was released on 700 screens in India.[7]
References
edit- ^ "Bangistan Movie Review: Is BANGISTAN a comedy?". Glamsham. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
- ^ "'Bangistan' teaser poster out! - Entertainment". Mid-day.com. 11 July 2014. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
- ^ Patrick Frater (22 April 2014). "Bollywood's 'Bangistan' to Shoot in Poland". Variety. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
- ^ Mahmood, Rafay (6 August 2015). "Bangistan gets a 'complete ban' by central censor board". The Express Tribune. Archived from the original on 10 August 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
- ^ "'Bangistan' movie - Comic Police Scene with Ritesh Deshmukh, Megh Pant & Zachary Coffin". YouTube.com. 16 January 2017. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "Bangistan review – always something to chuckle at in sly suicide-bomber comedy". The Guardian. 8 August 2015. Archived from the original on 25 June 2023.
- ^ "Mission Impossible And Bangistan First Day Business". Boxofficeindia.com. Retrieved 12 November 2015.