A misguided effort
Director: Ashu Trikha
Cast: Vinod Khanna, Suniel Shetty, Vipinno, Roopali Krishnarao
After Gangs Of Wasseypur and Günday, comes another movie that acquaints us with the brutality of the coal mafia. Koyelaanchal has its heart in the right place (as well as their locations), but the rest of the film suffers from shoddy execution.
Surya Bhan Singh (Vinod Khanna) governs the coal district of Jharkhand with an iron hand. He has an army of one man called Karua (Vipinno) that kills at will to his master. Nisheeth Kumar (Suniel Shetty) is a honest IAS officer sent to clean up the neighborhood. Her newborn son is abducted by Karua and how that inadvertently causes the change of heart filmic forms of the killing machine the crux of the film.
The film begins as a documentary and you feel you are ready for a surprise, but the excitement soon dried. Instead of a compelling drama about what is happening in India is not so bright, what you get is a montage of executions, with each frame increasingly gruesome. There is no story for Karua or Surya Bhan. We are not told how the former became unconditional murderer and how the latter took over the mob. Macho man Suniel Shetty was vomiting at the blood and does not fit his image of an action hero. We are told of the problems of the common man in a superficial way. The lack of details can not generate sympathy for them.
Ashu has taken all the usual tropes – the “good” of prostitutes, the Goonda Who Reforms, paralyzed the machinery of government – and have been misused. The dialogue is heavy-handed and by synchronizing sound in parts, grate on the ears. The film suffers from an overdose of dark palette. The second half continues and continues and the crazy climax, when it loses its impact.
Veterans Khanna and Shetty valiantly try to rise above the abysmal script and Vippino is suitably menacing performances in places but not consolidating their interest. All-in-all, what could have been a good little film of an actual situation becomes a caricaturish melodrama. A little sensitivity by manufacturers certainly would have taken it a notch or two. Instead, what you want is to go home and hunt for your copy of Kala Patthar.