Ghamasaan Review: Tigmanshu Dhulia returns to the Hindi heartland with Ghamasaan, a gritty crime drama that pits Pratik Gandhi’s IPS officer against Arshad Warsi’s feared dacoit. Streaming on ZEE5, the film revives the filmmaker’s trademark fascination with dusty landscapes and stories rooted in the hinterland. But does this face-off between cop and outlaw rise above the familiar dacoit-drama template?
The film stars Pratik Gandhi as IPS officer Aditya Singh and Arshad Warsi as Maharaj, the outlaw who has established an iron grip over villages in Bundelkhand. Aditya is tasked with bringing Maharaj down, but the mission is not as straightforward, as the dacoit hasn’t left his forest residence in decades, so no one outside knows what he looks like.The film begins with a promising strategy. Dhulia uses secondary characters to establish the setting. Arshad Warsi does not appear for the first 11 minutes of the film. Instead, the film uses those opening minutes to establish the fear surrounding Warsi’s character through the people who have encountered him, heard of him or live under his influence.Pratik Gandhi is also introduced much later, and the film uses nearly an hour to set up the premise. While this wait initially feels worth it, it becomes a test of patience until the pace picks up beyond the hour mark. What follows is a battle of strategy and gunpowder to see who will win between cop and dacoit.
Tigmanshu Dhulia has spent much of his career exploring men shaped by power, violence and circumstance. From Haasil and Paan Singh Tomar to the Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster franchise, his strongest films have often explored the grey areas between right and wrong. In Ghamasaan, however, there is no room for ambiguity.
Warsi’s Maharaj, though introduced with great promise, feels like a surface-level character. Much attention has been paid to establishing terror, but the character has no background. He is outright wrong and kills at the blink of an eye, but we don’t know what corrupted him. This is where Dhulia slightly falters. Though Warsi tries his best to pivot, his acting prowess only takes the character so far.
