Nishaanchi review: Aurag Kashyap is back but something seems amiss!

By no means is Nishaanchi a film that won’t keep you seated and engaged, yet unfortunately, it still craves that bold midas touch of the filmmaker who himself seems to crave his originality to come back to form! 

In Anurag Kashyap’s infamous Gangs of Wasseypur, it was quoted that as long as there is cinema in this country, people will continue to be fooled. The truth is, we are not unaware of this, yet sometimes, it feels good to be fooled, especially when the 70mm screen does it well. And therein lies the irony that as much as we wish our dull lives could mirror the grandeur of cinema, it’s just not possible. It’s exactly in this intersection that Kashyap’s legacy as a filmmaker lies. He has always been a master at staging reality with a sense of heightened drama, fully aware of the irony within it. His films often dramatize life, yet never fully merge with it; instead, they emerge as kitschy takes where the finality of a scripted film constantly wrestles with the unpredictability of life. It’s what give us the Kashyap brand of cinema and Nishaanchi is his return to that form. Though while it seems like he is having fun in his comfort zone genre, the film still falls just short of being the grand homecoming one had hoped for after a long time!

With the shadow of GoW looming large, the film opens with a robbery gone wrong in Kanpur 2006, as twin brothers Babloo and Dabloo (Aaishvary Thackeray's double role), along with Babloo’s girlfriend Rinku (Vedika Pinto), attempt to rob a bank, only to fail and land Babloo behind bars. From the very start, the tone is established that while the film carries the familiarity of GoW, it asserts itself as something distinctly its own. What follows, told through a back-and-forth narrative, is both a son’s quest for revenge after his father’s brutal murder and a wild love story between societal misfits who are shaped as much by their desires as by the world around them.

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There are many ways to read this film, but one compelling lens is to see it as Kashyap’s tribute to cinema itself. The story works within the mold of 70s and 80s Hindi films, where family, tragedy, and vengeance converge into larger-than-life drama. At the center is Babloo, whose life is shattered by Ambika Prasad(Kumud Mishra), a villainous figure who insinuates himself into the family’s life when Babloo is still a child. His father (Vineet Kumar Singh), a wrestler embittered by being denied a chance to represent the country, is manipulated by Ambika and lured down the wrong path. One reckless act of violence lands him in prison, where betrayal seals his fate with death. What remains is a grieving wife (Monica Panwar), whose journey transforms her from celebrated shooter to housewife to widowed mother of twins, the tragic archetypal image of a Hindi cinema maa.

As the boys are growing, the film shifts. Their paths diverge as Dabloo, as his name, grows timid, while Babloo embraces the classic arc of a hero forged in fire. Determined to avenge his father’s murder, under Ambika’s shadow, Babloo gets influenced by English movies and reinvent. Steeped in Hollywood gangster lore, he rechristens himself “Tony,” a deliberate nod to Scarface. It’s here that the film reveals its dual inheritance. Its dramatic heart beats with the Salim–Javed tradition of Hindi cinema, where corrupt cops, gangster villains, and family tragedies mold the hero. Yet layered over it is Hollywood’s stylized grammar of violence and morality. Babloo’s or rather Tony’s doesn't just submit under a kingpin; instead, he walks towards becoming the untouchable kingpin himself. This way it’s Kashyap tipping his hat to both, the cinema that inspired him and to the cinema he has made his own. Because beyond the unmistakable echoes of GoW, one can feel the strong essence of Mukkabaaz, Dev.D, and Ugly.

Another way of reading the film is to see it as a commentary - a parody of how love for the nation and its jingoistic celebration plays out today. In one striking moment, wrestlers in langoots sing about being the “pride of the nation,” but in English, a scene that is both absurd and razor-sharp, true to Kashyap’s instinct for saying the most with undertones rather than declarations. At the same time, the film also functions as a personal essay. Babloo’s journey as a questionable oddball feels like a reflection of Kashyap himself. As cinephiles, it’s tempting to read Babloo’s obsession with guns, gangsters, and cinema as mirroring Kashyap’s own solace in the movies. A different soul who found freedom in storytelling. In this sense, the film comes full circle as it is as much about cinema staging reality as a dramatic three-act structure as it is about showing how cinema itself becomes the outlet through which repression find release, almost yearning to step into it whether as filmmakers or, like me, as critics.

Yet, for all these layers, the film struggles to bind them into a cohesive whole. The pleasure of dissecting perspectives as a viewer is undercut by a self-consciousness, as if the film is working harder to craft these meanings than to simply be them. What emerges then is a haphazard, shapeless narrative entertaining at times, but scattered all over, mirroring the current many shades of the director himself. The disappointment here does not stem from the film alone, but from the weight of expectations tied to Kashyap. Having witnessed his brilliance at its sharpest, settling for something that feels muddled comes as a letdown. I never imagined saying this about an Anurag Kashyap film, but here the storytelling leans more on “telling” than “showing.” The film winds through such a maze-like structure that one often forgets details, only to be reminded of the start when the narrative circles back to its opening moments, rather than allowing a natural connection to unfold.

The music, quirky as it is and strung through the film as its eccentric soul, lacks the memorability of GoW's music. What does sustain the film, however, are the performances. Seasoned actors like Kumud Mishra and Vineet Kumar Singh bring weight and texture to their roles, while debutants Aaishvary Thackeray and Vedika Pinto show promise. Thackeray impresses in his swift transitions between the loud, volatile Babloo and the tender, timid Dabloo, embodying two contrasting shades of masculinity. Pinto channels the fury of a woman repeatedly wronged, infusing her character with both rage and charm. Meanwhile, Monica Panwar’s casting inevitably recalls Richa Chadha in GoW, yet she lend her role as a strong-willed woman left helpless yet unbroken, grounding the familiar trope of the young actress as the aging mother.

Having said that, after a long time, I can say that it was refreshing to watch the real world staged on screen where roads and gullies looked as they do in reality, not as AI-generated backdrops or green-screen VFX trickery. In a time when much of Hindi cinema feels like one disappointing tale after another, almost as if films are being churned out by algorithms instead of people, Nishaanchi offers a genuine Kanpuriya rootedness in an original cinematic fun. And for that alone, I’ll show up for Part 2. Yes, this is only Part 1 of the Nishaanchi saga. The post-credits tease what’s coming next, making the wait more about how the open threads and unanswered questions will be tied up and perhaps, in the process, even cure some of the disappointment that came with Part 1.

Nishaanchi Part 1 is currently running in theatres near you! 

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