Name: Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022)
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Released: 2022-02-25
Rating: 6.8
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz, Seema Pahwa, Jim Sarbh

A biographical drama, it chronicles the journey of a gun-wielding brothel owner and matriarch, Gangubai Kathiawadi. Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the film stars Alia bhatt in the titular role as the 'Mafia Queen', and promises to be an epic blockbuster packed with grand set-pieces, stellar performances and intense drama.

Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022)

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GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI is the story of a woman’s journey from being a prostitute to being a messiah of the oppressed. The story begins in the early 50s. Ganga Harjivandas (Alia Bhatt) is a resident of Kathiawad. Her father is a barrister and she belongs to a well-to-do family. Ganga wants to be an actress and her boyfriend, Ramneek (Varun Kapoor), tells her that he’ll help her bag a role in a big Hindi film. She runs away with him to Bombay. In Bombay, he takes her to a brothel, run by Sheela (Seema Pahwa). This is when Ganga is told that Ramneek has sold her to Sheela for Rs. 1,000. At first, she protests but later gives in and joins the flesh trade. After she sleeps with her first client, something changes in her. She renames herself Gangu. In no time, she becomes rebellious, much against the will of Sheela. One day, early in the morning, Sheela gets a visitor, Shaukat Abbas Khan. He asks for Gangu. Sheela realizes that he doesn’t seem right. Yet, she allows Gangu to sleep with Shaukat to teach her a lesson. Also, she sends her henchmen away. Shaukat attacks Gangu and badly injures her. Gangu has to be hospitalized as Shaukat has disfigured her. Gangu learns that Shaukat belongs to the gang of Rahim Lala (Ajay Devgn), a famous don in Bombay and also quite a respectful figure of the city. Gangu meets him and tells him the truth. Rahim teaches Shaukat a lesson in public. The way Rahim Lala comes forward to help Gangu gives her the much-needed boost. Soon, Sheela passes away and Gangu takes over the business. She realizes that she needs to win the elections of the Kamathipura Association to turn the ride of the 4,000 sex workers residing in the red light area. However, doing so won’t be a cakewalk. Gangubai’s opponent is none other than the very powerful Razia Bai (Vijay Raaz). What happens next forms the rest of the film.
GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI is inspired from the chapter ‘The Matriarch Of Kamathipura’ in S Hussain Zaidi’s book, ‘Mafia Queens Of Mumbai’. The story is interesting and raises some important issues. Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Utkarshini Vashishtha's screenplay is entertaining and dramatic. Several films in the past have touched upon the lives of sex workers. But the writers ensure one doesn’t get a déjà vu of these movies. The character of Gangubai is very well fleshed out and the same goes for other supporting characters. Prakash Kapadia and Utkarshini Vashishtha's dialogues are powerful and one of the best in recent times. In several scenes, it’s the hard-hitting one liners that enhance the impact.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's direction is first-rate. He ensures the viewers get zapped into the world of Gangubai and Kamathipura. He has given some accomplished films in the past and hence, one doesn’t expect an ordinary product from him. In this regard, he doesn’t disappoint. He has helmed the story beautifully and sensitively and has also added the grandeur the way only he could have achieved. Gangubai’s pain comes out very well and everyone can empathize with her. At the same time, for most parts, the film is not disturbing and is quite mainstream in its treatment. However, the romantic portion between Gangubai and Afsaan (Shantanu Maheshwari) could have been shorter as this is when the film gets a bit slow. The second half is engaging but for the single-screen audience, it doesn’t offer mass entertainment. Moreover, Gangubai is called ‘Mafia Queen’ a couple of times but she isn’t depicted as a mafia in any way.

GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI’s beginning portions are a bit dark and disturbing. The film gets better once Ganga turns into Gangu. The entire track of Shaukat Abbas Khan and Razia Bai are highly engrossing. All scenes of Rahim Lala give a lot of weightage to the narrative. The romantic track, though a bit weak, has some cute moments. Post-interval, the film drops at places but picks up in the Azad Maidan speech scene and in the last 15 minutes.
Alia Bhatt delivers arguably the best performance of her career. Many had reservations that age-wise, she is not correct for the part. However, Gangubai is shown to be quite young and hence, Alia fits the bill perfectly. And she gets into the skin of her character like never before. Ajay Devgn has a 10-minute appearance and he’s phenomenal. His casting is also spot-on. Seema Pahwa is memorable. Vijay Raaz is too good in a small role. Shantanu Maheshwari is adorable and will be loved. Varun Kapoor is decent. Jim Sarbh (Journalist Amin Faizi) is excellent. Indira Tiwari (Kamli), last seen in SERIOUS MEN [2020] is a surprise of the film. Rahul Vohra (Prime Minister) is decent. The actors playing Madhu (the girl rescued by Gangubai), Shaukat Abbas Khan, Birju, the dentist, etc. are fine. Huma Qureshi is good in the 'Shikayat' song.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's music is a big letdown. He is known for soulful and hit songs but not a single song of GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI registers. 'Dholida' is okay just due to the picturization. The same goes for 'Meri Jaan' and 'Jab Saiyaan'. 'Shikayat' and 'Jhume Re Gori' are forgettable. Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara's background score is much better.

Sudeep Chatterjee's cinematography is topnotch and the Kamathipura set visuals are captured beautifully. Subrata Chakraborty and Amit Ray's production design is pleasing to the eyes and yet very realistic. Sheetal Iqbal Sharma's costumes are appealing, especially the white costumes worn by Alia. Sham Kaushal's action is fine. VFX is great. Sanjay Leela Bhansali's editing could have been better at a few places.

On the whole, GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI is a powerful saga and is embellished with terrific moments and a career best performance by Alia Bhatt. At the box office, it has bright chances to score with the multiplex and female audiences.

Women invitingly standing at the doorstep of a kotha (brothel) in the bustling bylanes of south Mumbai’s infamous red-light area Kamathipura, is a scene that is real, tragic and dramatic. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’, set entirely against this gritty backdrop of Mumbai, tells the story of many young women who were sold off to brothels for a few hundred, solely through the eyes of its protagonist Gangubai (Alia Bhatt).
It’s sometime in the early 1950s or 1960s when a starry-eyed and naive Ganga is conned by her own lover Ramnik (Varun Kapoor) to elope with a promise that he will pave the path for her to make it as a heroine in Bollywood. What turns out is that Ganga (who rechristens herself as Gangu, and eventually Gangubai), ends up being the heroine of Kamathipura instead. Over the years, Kamathipura becomes her home, the brothel girls her family and all of Kamathipura her domain. But her journey is fraught with challenges, opponents and a social stigma that brings out the fighter within her.
The beauty of the film lies in how it shows Gangu’s character transform through various stages in her life. The narrative takes time to build up, even slowing down along the way, but not without leaving an impact through some fiery dialogues and powerful moments.
It’s an Alia Bhatt show all the way, as she slips into the role of the bosslady in a world full of brothels and lustful men. It might take a while to feel comfortable with the idea of Alia playing this part, and she too takes her time to settle in. She does deliver the much-loaded dialogues with supreme confidence, audacity and a killer instinct. What’s unmissable and strange in all of this, while the narrative moves ahead, is that the physical appearance of Alia’s character, always clad in pretty whites, remains unchanged.
Ajay Devgn, even in a brief role as Rahim Lala, leaves a solid impact. The rest of the supporting cast like Seema Pahwa, Vijay Raaz, and Jim Sarbh put their best foot forward, but don’t have much room to shine. Shantanu Maheshwari as Gangu’s love interest puts out a fine performance, and the bitter-sweet moments between Gangu and him are among the more memorable parts of the film.
Bhansali drives his narrative much like the book with each challenge and episode moving like a chapter. While there is a lot packed into the film — like how Gangu turns into an activist for the women in Kamathipura, her liaison with the city’s underbelly and her political aspirations — we are still left craving to know more about the rest of her life and how it all unfolded. There are some beautifully crafted, heartbreaking moments in Bhansali’s signature style — with a lot of finesse and flair — however, the narrative does not delve deep into any one aspect of Gangu’s life. The production value is top-notch. The film skillfully pays homage to the bygone era through movie posters and actor portraits of that time plastered on the walls. Each song is masterfully and colourfully picturised — even while Gangu stands like a vision in white in the midst of it all. But none of the songs, other than Dholida, are too memorable.
Like every other Bhansali film, this one, too, is a visual delight. While the camera captures the dark alleys of Mumbai’s red-light area, it does so with extravagance and ample gloss. Yes, the story brings to the fore some poignant truths about our society, the lives of sex-workers and raises some hard-hitting and pertinent questions, but there is plenty about her life that remains untold. The screenplay is what falters here, by simply holding on to some well-designed dramatic scenes and heavy-duty dialogues, which keep you engaged for a while. But after a point, the film feels too long for its runtime.
If you’re seeking a real peek into Gangubai’s life, also known as Mumbai’s Mafia Queen, then you will be left yearning for more. But even with whatever is packed into this drama, there are enough moments that will draw you into this world where nights seem endless and the lights never fade.

There is a scene in Gangubai Kathiawadi where, on the first day at her job, Alia gets help from another sex worker in posing and making the right gestures to woo clients. A helpless Alia, new to the profession, poses awkwardly on her friend's cue - one hand on her waist, the other extended out while making lewd gestures, looking lost and uneasy. Much like this scene, Gangubai Kathiawadi feels like a constant struggle to get the right cues to keep the audience's interest alive. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest effort to paint a canvas with hues of white and green and tints of sepia feels like a love letter written to its protagonist - the infamous sex worker who championed the cause of her profession and reached dizzying heights of fame in her heyday.

The biggest litmus test for the film is the brave choice to cast Alia Bhatt as the lead for a character that seems not just larger than life but one that overshadows the actress as she takes on one of the biggest risk of her career. Alia takes on Gangubai with immense zeal and not just chews but goes for the kill at every possible opportunity. And the opportunities are plenty. The film opens to modern-day Kamathipura and takes us into flashback mode where we meet Ganga, who is conned into leaving her small town with the false promise of becoming an actress. She is sold to a harem owned by Madam Sheela (Seema Pahwa) and told to learn the tricks of the trade against her will. The scenes depicting Gangu’s innocence and vulnerability soon turn to those of violence and rape when she seeks solace in the arms of a local mafia head, Karim Lala (Ajay Devgn). A pivotal turning point in the film is when, with Lala’s help, Ganga becomes Gangubai, a woman who accepts her destiny with open arms and makes peace with her elusive past.
There are ample scenes in the film where SLB gets to show off his trademark moves - the overhead shots, the Dholida song, the razor-sharp monologues, the staple romantic track with shades of flirting that is never overtly sexy yet oozes physical intimacy.

Gangubai’s meteoric rise to the top is not easy. Her nemesis, a transgender harem owner Raziabai (Vijay Raaz), takes her head-on as she challenges her authority over Kamathipura. The men in Gangu’s life are always on the periphery. Be it her fleeting love story with Afsaan (Shantanu Maheshwari) or Jim Sarbh, a journalist who puts her on the cover of a magazine, she is always on guard when it comes to trusting the opposite sex.

The performances in Gangubai are top-notch. Ajay Devgn is outstanding as Lala and his entry scene is bound to draw whistles from the aisles. A welcome break from the Singham world, Ajay’s ability to draw empathy for Gangu makes him a very important character in her journey. Despite the limited screen time, Vijay Raaz is even more menacing than Sadashiv Amprapurkar’s Maharani act in Sadak. Raaz plays Raziabai with grace yet evokes constant fear each time he’s in the frame. You can’t take your eyes off him in the confrontation scenes with Gangu.
Alia deserves credit for attempting a character that’s way beyond her reach. She aces her long monologues in the second half and her intoxicated outburst scene, both of which showcase a totally different side to her. Her act isn’t perfect, she stumbles in a few scenes, but that imperfection is what makes Gangubai real.

However, the film also has its fair share of hiccups. The first half doesn’t really have much going on and it takes Alia a while to slip into Gangu mode. She has to sit, talk, walk, like Gangubai and there are moments where Alia surfaces, eclipsing the character she’s playing. The Gujarati accent is uneven in places. When you play such a larger-than-life character, the worry is that even a slight misstep gets amplified tenfold on the large screen.
Gangubai is not perfect. The film is about the choices she makes. There is very little emphasis on the wrong turns she makes in her journey to reach the top and meet the Prime Minister of the country to champion her cause.

Gangubai Kathiawadi’s camera work, background score and dialogues are the three pillars that take it from being just another gutsy biopic to a film that creates a massive impact. Gangubai is a solid risk for both Bhansali and Alia. A risk that pays off beautifully for both the director and his muse.

The only way you can enjoy Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi is to embrace its extravagantly-constructed universe — the elaborate sets that make up the red-light area of Kamathipura that becomes the location of most of the film’s run-time, the frames which look like art deco paintings, and, most crucially, the very youthful and very fair-and-lovely Alia Bhatt playing the lead character who says she is ‘sattaaiis saal’ (27 years), but looks younger, and much less marked by her horrific life experiences of having been sold into prostitution.

Once you get past all of the above, and it took me some time into the film to reach that point, I was invested in the extraordinary story of Gangubai, the naive young girl from a ‘good family’ in Kathiawad, besotted as she is by matinee idol Dev Anand and desperate to become an actress, who ends up in a brothel instead of a studio. Based on S Hussain Zaidi’s ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai’, the film touches upon on chosen salient points in Gangu’s life, as she goes from being just another face learning to entice passing customers, to the woman who rules the street and learns to fight for the rights of the ‘chaar hazaar’ (four thousand) sex workers of Kamathipura.

Because it is a Bhansali film, even the grunge and grime of the insides of the brothel, and the ‘badnaam galis’ (infamous streets) is made to look appealing. It is no surprise that Gangubai Kathiawadi is visually resplendent, because that’s Bhansali’s trademark: the glittering vintage car given to Gangu as an extravagant Eidi by her ‘brother’, powerful mobster Karim Lala (Ajay Devgn, in an extended cameo, all ‘surma’ in eyes and slo-mo Pathan smouler), the ‘aankhon-hi-aankhon mein ishaara’ songs between her love interest Afsaan (Shantanu Maheshwari), the near fetishistic bathing scene behind a curtain (Bhansali loves these: remember the one in ‘Bajirao Mastani’ ?), even the ‘death scene’ in which the women adorn and mourn one of their own who has passed on – these sequences are stunning.
What raises it above your standard Bhansali spectacle is Bhatt’s willingness to go the mile: beneath the cuss-words, the drunken binges and the speechifying-on-podiums, some of which come off as ‘acting’, Alia Bhatt makes her Gangubai real. We are made to feel the pain of the women whose lives are so circumscribed and who feel so abandoned by their loved ones that they can find camaraderie, rough and tumble it may be, only amongst themselves. These are things we have seen before, especially the sequences where young girls are tricked into thinking they are in safe havens, and then are thrown to the wolves: the forcing in of the traditional ‘nath’ into a terrified teenager’s bleeding nose, and the even more terrifying consequences of the ‘utaarna’ is heart-rending.

Not all of it escapes feeling staged. A ‘quawaali’ feels unnecessary. The attempts to create a ‘noble’ Gangubai, especially when a bleeding-heart journalist (Jim Sarbh) decides to make it his mission, becomes fluffy. And despite Bhatt’s best efforts, some of the ‘bhaashans’ she delivers feel like a string of crowd-pleasing ‘taali-seeti’ dialogues.
The ensemble makes up for the slack patches. Shantanu Maheshwari, as a shy young man with feelings for Gangu, is effective. Vijay Raaz as the trans madame Razia is terrific; you wish there was more of him. Indira Tiwari (last seen in ‘Serious Men’) as Gangu’s friend and confidante, nearly runs away with the film, and Seema Pahwa as the cruel-capricious brothel-in-charge is a welcome break from the ‘joint-family-roles’ she has been playing for a while now.

Often, Bhansali’s penchant for heightened baroque tends to overwhelm his film. This time the story matches the tone, and makes for the kind of old-fashioned dialogue-heavy, sentiment-on-sleeve film which Bollywood is forgetting how to make.

Gangubai Kathiawadi |Official Telugu Trailer| Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Alia, Ajay Devgn |25th Feb 2022

Gangubai Kathiawadi | Official Teaser | Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Alia Bhatt | 30th July 2021

Gangubai Kathiawadi | Official Telugu Teaser | Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Alia Bhatt

Gangubai Kathiawadi | Official Trailer| Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn |25th Feb 2022

Daughter of veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, Alia Bhatt is a well-known Bollywood actor & singer. She debuted as a child artist in 1999 with Tanuja Chandra's Sangharsh. The recipient of several accolades, including two Filmfare awards, Alia began her acting career in 2012 with Student Of The Year directed by Karan Johar. In a very short span of time, Alia has gained huge popularity. She has appeared in movies like Highway, Kapoor & Sons, 2 States, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Udta Punjab and Dear Zindagi. Alia turned singer with Imtiaz Ali’s movie Highway. Alia is also the founder of the ecological initiative CoExist.

Alia Bhatt

Vijay Raaz is an actor who rose to fame with his performance in the 2001 drama Monsoon Wedding. Born and raised in Delhi, Vijay Raaz was associated with the dramatic society called The Players. He also performed in plays at the National School of Drama and was recommended by veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah to filmmakers like Mira Nair and Mahesh Mathai. His performances in films like Run, Raghu Romeo and Delhi 6 earned him widespread critical acclaim.

Vijay Raaz

Ajay Devgan (born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969),[2] also credited as Ajay Devgn,[3] is an Indian film actor, director and producer. He is widely considered as one of the most popular actors of Hindi cinema, who has appeared in over a hundred Hindi films.[4][5][6] Devgan has won numerous accolades, including two National Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards.[7][8] In 2016, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour of the country.[9]

Ajay Devgn

Shantanu Maheshwari is an Indian actor, dancer, choreographer and host. He debuted in the show Dil Dosti Dance on Channel V in his breakout performance as the protagonist Swayam Shekhawat. In 2017, he participated in Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 8 and emerged as the winner.

Shantanu Maheshwari

Seema Pahwa

Recognized for his contribution to theater, Jim Sarbh is an actor and director who made his Bollywood debut with the biographical thriller Neerja. His performance was highly appreciated and critically acclaimed and he also won several awards for the same. He has worked with celebrated actors like Om Puri and Tanuja, acted in several short films and was a part of Forbes Under 30 List in 2015. Jim has also worked as a literary intern at the Alliance Theater while studying in Atlanta and won the Major Supporting Role Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Award for his acting.

Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022)(2022)