‘Nishaanchi’: Country-made pistol misfires

Usually, a screenplay begins with an idea and some discipline. Anurag Kashyap, however, seems to begin with a blindfold, a map of India, and a determination to excavate the most lyrical obscenities from whichever district fate selects. Only after locking in the gaalis and quirky regional beats does he seem to bother with plot (and it works, mostly).

‘Nishaanchi’ bears the stamp of the Kashyap method. Set in 2006 Kanpur, the film sways with the swagger of the early 2010s’ cinema. The frames hold a second longer than they should, as if announcing, “Bollywood is back” — but with all its tired habits.

At the centre are twins Bablu and Dablu (Aaishvary Thackeray, double role), born to shooter-turned-damsel Manjari (Monika Panwar) and wrestler Jabardast (Vineet Kumar Singh). The scheming Ambika Prasad (Kumud Mishra) knocks off his friend Jabardast in prison to clear his way to Manjari.

Dablu is raised righteous and timid — emasculated, really — by his mother, while Bablu is groomed into gangsterhood under Ambika’s wing. We hit the ground running with a bank heist. Bablu, Dablu, and Rinku (Vedika Pinto) — Bablu’s lover, who confusingly calls him Tony, because two names aren’t quite enough for one face — navigate Kashyap’s postcard of small-town India.

Here, the fetishisation works in spurts: the heist is delayed because the bank ‘technically’ opens only after the employees finish breakfast. When getaway driver Rinku tries to alert the twins of the cops, poor mobile network gets in the way; and when a cop spots Rinku outside the bank, he lets her off with a “Ladiez hai”.

The heist collapses, Bablu lands in jail, and Dablu is left alone with Rinku — falling for her almost immediately. The rest of the film dances around this love triangle we already know the answers to.

Meanwhile, Manjari’s arc suffers from costuming so indifferent it borders on satire: in 2006, with sons grown enough to commit crime and fall in love with the same woman, she is aged only through reluctant grey sideburns and a tired saree.

Most of the costume budget seems to have been diverted to Dablu’s gaudy shirts — because Bollywood insists small-town Rambos dress like Holi incarnate.

In a brilliant bit, crooked cop Kamal (Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, effortlessly stellar) trails Rinku home, only to be shooed away by her pretend phone call to the CM’s son — actually Dablu. The genius writing of Thackeray playing a character playing political royalty is classic Kashyap wit.

Yet the film often drowns in its own realism: crooked cops, shattered dreams, vulgar dance circuits, and local muscle all crammed so tightly that the narrative gives way to shock factor. Kashyap has been here before — ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’ comes to mind.

Thackeray debuts strong. Bablu is all swagger and sleaze, but Dablu, in the beginning, edges into Ishaan Awasthi of ‘Taare Zameen Par’. Pinto steals scenes, while Panwar does a plausibly okay job.

After three hours of trying to keep track of which twin is which, you realise this story isn’t ending. Because it’s merely the first part of Kashyap’s self-mythology.

‘Nishaanchi’ marks his return to old terrain. But it is also the cinematic equivalent of — “this meeting could have been an email”.