Mirzapur the Movie

Mirzapur The Movie starts off after some time has passed in the first season of the web series. Akhandanand Tripathi aka Kaleen Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi) is the king of Mirzapur’s underworld. His son Munna (Divyenndu) is feared more because of his lineage. Kaleen Bhaiya doesn’t trust his son because of his short temper and immaturity. He is more impressed by Guddu Bhaiya (Ali Fazal) and Bablu (Jitendra Kumar), two brothers working for his empire with dedication. Guddu and Bablu’s father (Rajesh Tailang) is embarrassed to see his sons working for an underworld don. However, their mother (Sheeba Chadha) thinks the opposite since the two are able to earn big bucks in quick time, even if the means are illegal. Kaleen Bhaiya’s empire and Mirzapur ki gaddi gets threatened when the Jaisalmer-based businessman-cum-gangster Babban Yadav (Ravi Kishan) offers to make a deal with him involving large quantity of drugs.

That the tired third (and most recent) season of Mirzapur—Prime Video’s landscape-defining gangster saga—was a disappointment is hardly breaking news. But the third instalment also served as a massive ego boost for two figures in particular whose absence felt instrumental to the show’s diminishing returns. The first is the original creator and lead writer, Puneet Krishna. The second is Divyenndu, whose endlessly quotable Munna Tripathi—one of the streaming era’s most crackling creations the makers regrettably killed off in the second season, thereby shooting themselves in the foot (which, ironically, is a pretty Munna thing to do). Enter Mirzapur: The Movie—a prequel that takes place before the explosive, Red Wedding-esque Season 1 finale. So, all the key characters are still alive and ticking, and writer Puneet Krishna is back at the helm alongside the show’s other creative architect, director Gurmmeet Singh.

Before the release of Mirzapur: The Movie, a number of questions popped up in my mind. The most important among them being: how does one view a popular, pulsating world and its indelible, iconic characters through a new lens, having journeyed with them over three blockbuster seasons? Mirzapur: The Movie — based, of course, on the streaming winner which broke out as soon as it dropped its Season 1 in November 2018 and has since become a pop-culture phenomenon — ushers you in with a feel which is familiar yet fresh, taking us into the origins of this gritty, violent world and the beginnings of its memorable players. This is a film that has been created purely in the service of its fans. For a large part, it fulfils that promise, but one also feels that the bite and bhaukaal has gone missing in this tempered-down big-screen outing.

When Mirzapur: The Movie was announced, I have to admit I was sceptical. The film, an extension of the hugely popular web series Mirzapur, was supposed to take audiences back in time, somewhere in the middle of the first season. Loyal audiences of the series have, over the years, already progressed a lot into the Mirzapur universe. Some key characters are now long dead in the series, and the trajectories of Munna, Guddu, Golu, and Kaleen Bhaiyaa have also taken very different turns. Was it necessary to make a movie and go back to the origin story again, I wondered. Happy to report that my doubts and scepticism were pleasantly put to rest as I watched Mirzapur the movie. The film takes you back in time, somewhere in the middle of the first season and introduces new characters and adds a fresh twist to the story. The result is a deeply engaging story of power and greed, but also of validation and fighting for love.

Once you watch Mirzapur The Movie on the big screen, you realise this was always meant to be a theatrical experience. We have enjoyed Mirzapur on OTT, but watching these characters and this world unfold on a big screen gives the story a completely different impact. It transports you right back into their world. It also makes you realise that writing is where the real magic lies. Puneet Krishna’s writing and Gurmeet Singh’s direction are once again a winning combination. They take the same characters, put them in familiar situations and yet manage to make this feel like another chapter in their lives. The film fits somewhere in the timeline of what we have already seen in the series and works almost like another, very big episode of Mirzapur.

It’s a given that Mirzapur: The Movie would be held up against the eponymous series for comparison. The judgement is inevitable. A movie foray promises scale and spectacle. Director Gurmmeet Singh, who has helmed several episodes of the show, directs with efficiency and Puneet Krishna’s screenplay keeps the action buzzing. The crime drama branches out from the Uttar Pradesh terrain, stretching into Jaisalmer’s sands. A new rival to Mirzapur’s king, Kaleen Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi), intrudes. As Kaleen himself confesses in the opening, whoever occupies the throne gets locked into a constant relationship with death. Power operates through fear. The film is slashed open with Kaleen held captive. It then unravels to show how he got to that point. It must be noted, though, that this film is situated at a moment in the franchise far preceding the slew of major deaths.

The extended parable of the pursuit and preservation of power in a lawless upcountry region that earned a substantial following as a web series is compressed smartly into a jaunty, action-packed three-hour-plus movie with new characters and detours thrown in. The movie has its share of surprise elements but plays out largely along predictable lines. Most of the men and women who peopled Mirzapur over its two seasons are back in Mirzapur: The Movie - a few of them from the dead - at the centre of events and backstories that did not make it to the series or were merely alluded to.