Oct 22, 20234 min read

Ganapath Part-1 Movie Review

In a dystopian future, the disparity between rich and poor can only be eliminated by the chosen one aka ‘Ganapath’, the ultimate warrior (Yoddha), who must lead the resistance against an oppressive regime headed by an undisclosed villain, Dalini.

Review: Vikas Bahl’s futuristic action drama explores the dichotomy between the ultra-rich and ultra-poor, that compels a reluctant Guddu to become Ganapath (Tiger Shroff).

It all starts with a war that divides our society into two parts. Rich people create the high-tech 'Silver City', where you see more drones than humans. The poor, who wear clothes that need to show that they are poor, are dumped in 'Gareebon ki Basti’. They have no food, water, shelter, or money except for hope. They believe that their future rests in the hands of Ganapath, their saviour. Turns out, Guddu, who is happy with his rich and promiscuous lifestyle in silver city is the chosen one! Guddu is loyal to his mentor ‘John, the Englishman’ (Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri in a key role) until they part ways unceremoniously. What is Guddu's past and real identity? Who is Shiva?

In a world where the rich are getting richer and poor, poorer, Ganapath comes up with a concept that imitates our hard-hitting reality. The premise comes as a breath of fresh air in Bollywood, that rarely addresses socio-political crisis in its storylines now. However, something of this nature and an origin story needs tremendous world building. Blending themes of sci-fi, mythology and reality can be tough to achieve.

The film’s excessive need to offer filmy entertainment through a grave social conflict harms the execution and the story’s immense potential. Unnecessary songs, romance, and humour feel like an interruption to an otherwise grim plot. Shoddy graphics stick out like a sore thumb. They do little to elevate the film’s scale or bring the director’s vision to life.

Those familiar with trailblazing films like Mad Max: Fury Road, Dune and Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Elysium, can tell how relevant and immersive Ganapath could have been with the right execution. There are few decent performances but even those don’t salvage the lack of consistency in the treatment and mood.

Tiger Shroff needs to work harder on his dialogue delivery and needs emotional investment in the roles he portrays. The writing resorts to a Mumbaiyya twang but lacks punch. Lines like “Duniya haseenon ka mela, Aapun bohot khela”, “Jab aapun darta hai toh bohot maarta hai” and ‘Apun ko itni padi hai ke apan aise jeetay hai jaise apanko koi padi nahi hai” make no impression.

The fight sequences are finely choreographed, and, in this area, Tiger excels. Kriti Sanon is impressive in her warrior avatar, but her character is eventually reduced to being a love interest. An actor as good as Ziad Bakri deserved a well-written character.

We wish the film stayed loyal to the world it hoped to create instead of succumbing to Bollywood tropes. Ganapath feels like a huge potential wasted.

Post-apocalyptic fiction is a genre that probably originated from a developed country’s worst fears. Aliens almost always attack the White House. A drone shot of a nuclear-bombed wasteland is incomplete without a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and its missing head. Indian filmmakers rarely come up with dystopian films. Probably, because they can’t imagine a world worse than the one they currently live in. And god forbid if they do, it’s in the form of a Ganapath, a developing country’s cinematic nightmare.

It’s odd to see director Vikas Bahl, best known for heart-warmers like Chillar Party, Queen and Shaandaar, try his hand at dystopia. But who am I kidding? Ganapath doesn’t even qualify as an attempt.

It’s a two-hour test of the audience’s resilience to endure Tiger Shroff’s routine air flips. The storytelling and world-building is plain, juvenile and as imaginative as a child weaving the plot of a comic book on the last page of their notebook.

Amitabh Bachchan’s baritone introduces us to a world destroyed by nuclear war which led to a refugee crisis. If they weren’t already, people are now strictly divided among the ameer (rich) and the gareeb (poor). The rich reside in ‘Silver City’, whose visuals are straight out of a promotional video for a housing project. The poor get the prosaic ‘gareeb basti’. A metal wall (which is so badly CGI-ed, it is seldom shown) divides the land between the rich and the poor. So that they don’t kill each other over the depleting resources, Amitabh’s local wise-man Dalapathi, introduces the gareebs to akhadas (fighting arena), in which they can battle to vent their frustration against the privileged. The rich make this also into a business and choose the best fighters from the bastis to fight for them in betted-on, ring matches. It’s basically Hunger Games without the societal subtext or the narrative coherence. Blunder games. After playing characters named after banal north-Indian monikers (Babloo in Heropanti series and Munna in Munna Michael), Tiger Shroff is now Guddu aka Ganapath, a messiah, prophesied to fight for the poor. He, literally, only does that. The film jumps from one set-piece to another set-piece of Tiger replaying his kicks on the bad guys. When he is not showing off his tired action moves, he is either grooving to instantly forgettable songs or simply over Kriti Sanon’s version of post-apocalyptic rebel girl, Jassi. If I had to pick a different kind of action in the film at gunpoint, it would be Jassi swinging nunchaku in one of the scenes. When it comes to the antagonist, there is a “villain”, a white man who goes by the name John, The Englishman and his boss Dalini, who is almost always shown with his back turned and might just be a computer graphic. Ganapath’s VFX looks like it missed patchwork. The destroyed buildings and the arid world look so plastic, I was afraid that the green screen behind Tiger might topple while he is in the middle of mouthing a dialogue. There are drones and planes which look like they have been shaped out of cardboard. The ring fights reminded me of arcade games. The only thing futuristic about the film is probably ChatGPT’s inputs on the script. The plot is convenient, stale and the screenplay is a mind-numbing drawl. How much can one be amazed by Tiger Shroff’s action-figure-sculpted body? Ganapath is a first draft of an idea which has been forced into a full-length feature-film. And there might be a sequel incoming. Brace yourselves.