Gunda (1998 film)

Gunda (transl. Goon) is a 1990 Indian Hindi-language action film written by Bashir Babbar and directed by Kanti Shah. Starring Mithun Chakraborty, Mukesh Rishi and Shakti Kapoor, the film was produced by Anil Singh and the music was composed by Anand Raj Anand.The narrative revolves around a coolie who vows to exact revenge upon a crime lord and his cronies after they kill his loved ones. The film was released on 4 September 1998. Over time, the film has gained a cult following, selling over 2,000 VCD copies at a single outlet.^[1] It also received a limited re-release in 2018.^[2] The same year, actor Deepak Shirke who played politician Bachubhai, revealed that the film was pitched to him without a script.^[3]

The story begins with two corrupt politicians hiring rival crime lords Lambu Aatta and Bulla to eliminate each other in a convoluted game of gangster roulette. Lambu Aatta kicks off the bloodshed by killing one of Bulla’s lackeys, only for Bulla to retaliate by murdering Lambu Aatta’s brother. Not to be outdone, Lambu Aatta escalates the depravity by raping and killing Bulla’s sister, setting the tone for a film that treats human decency like an optional extra. Bulla, predictably, kills Lambu Aatta, claiming the underworld crown in a city where apparently no one else wants the job.

Enter Shankar, a coolie who juggles gigs at a shipyard and an airport, because Mumbai’s labor market is evidently a one-man show. Living with his policeman father, sister Geeta, and a pet monkey named Tinku, who steals every scene by sheer virtue of not being human, Shankar is the film’s supposed moral compass. His girlfriend Ganga nags him to tie the knot, but Shankar’s too busy playing saint to care. He enters a fighting contest run by Bulla, not for glory, but to bankroll a random laborer’s daughter’s wedding, because that’s the kind of noble nonsense this movie peddles. Shankar defeats Bulla’s champion by twisting his wrist for a few seconds, because apparently that’s how fights work in this alternate reality where physics is just a suggestion.

Bulla, now thoroughly annoyed, sends his goons to beat Shankar’s father for daring to stop their extortion racket. Shankar arrives, dispatching the acrobatic thugs, who flip through the air like rejected stunt doubles, in a fight scene that laughs in the face of choreography. Bulla’s revenge takes a darker turn when his henchman Naate kidnaps Geeta, who’s briefly saved by Gulshan, only for it to be revealed as a trap. Gulshan marries her, then hands her over to another goon, Chuttiya, who kills her during an assault, dumping her body in a jungle. Tinku, the monkey, snitches on the crime, leading Shankar to Bulla’s doorstep, where he faces a rogue’s gallery of henchmen and swears to kill them all in a specific order within 10 days, a prequel to Final Destination.

Shankar’s father confronts a corrupt inspector, only to be choked to death in a scene that feels like it was added to pad the runtime. Shankar, now a one-man vengeance machine, starts picking off Bulla’s crew, beheading one, killing another, and getting framed for the murder of politician Bachchubhai Bhigona, who’s conveniently sniped by someone else. Jailed and escaping the same night, because prison security here is as robust as wet tissue, Shankar continues his rampage, taking down a human trafficker and discovering the abandoned baby girl he adopted is Bulla’s illegitimate child. Bulla, not content with his already astronomical body count, kills Ganga, because this movie hates joy.

The climax is a deranged spectacle set in a shipyard-airport-coal-mine hybrid, because why settle for one location when you can mash three together? Bulla unleashes an army of auto-rickshaws that swarm Shankar like budget Transformers, only for Shankar to pull a rocket launcher from his car trunk, because every coolie keeps heavy artillery on hand. Bulla tries to use his own baby as a shield, only for Tinku the monkey to save her, proving once again that the primate is the film’s true hero. Shankar takes down a helicopter and Bulla in a final fight that feels like it was improvised by someone who’s never seen a movie before.

• Mithun Chakraborty as Shankar
• Mukesh Rishi as Bulla
• Ishrat Ali as Lambu Atta
• Shakti Kapoor as Chuttiya
• Razak Khan as Lucky Chikna
• Rami Reddy as Kala Shetty
• Harish Patel as Ibu Hatela
• Mohan Joshi as Pote
• Deepak Shirke as Bachubhai Bhigona
• Rana Jung Bahadur as Inspector Kale
• Arun Mathur as Havaldar Ram Singh, Shankar's father
• Varna Raj as Ganga
• Gulshan Rana as Gulshan
• Vinod Tripathi as Kundan
• Sapna as Geeta^[4]

Ravi Balakrishnan of The Economic Times states "The Mithun Chakarborthy-starrer has gained a surprising amount of cult popularity over the last year and a half or so, with several adulatory reviews and even fan-sites cropping up. But when we first saw Gunda, back in 2005, a full seven years after its unheralded release in 1998, it was the first any of us had heard of the film or its prolific director, Kanti Shah."^[5] Mayank Shekhar of the Mumbai Mirror says that "Gladwell hasn't seen Gunda (probably, neither have you). He must. He'd be glad. In my living memory, I have yet to notice a more startling revelation of the mysterious 'tipping point' anywhere of my social circle. Over the past few months, about four unrelated sources from three parts of the world have asked me if I'd seen Kanti Shah's Gunda."^[6]

On its release in 1998, the film had to be withdrawn from theaters due to complaints received by the Central Board of Film Certification from college girls who were appalled by the excessive violence, sex and obscenity in the film. The film had earlier been rejected by the Central Board of Film Certification due to use of filthy language and obscenity, it was later passed with an A certificate after the film makers made changes to the film. It was alleged that the version running in theaters prior to the withdrawal was the unedited print. The cases filed from Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore have since been withdrawn and the movie has also been cleared.^[7]

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• Gunda at IMDb
• Gunda Review by The Great Bong