Irrfan Khan’s restrained brilliance, the crackling chemistry of Ranveer and Arjun in the first half, and the utterly infectious soundtrack. Skip it if you are looking for period accuracy or a progressive take on friendship and love.

In the pantheon of modern Bollywood masala films, few have embraced their inherent absurdity with as much chest-thumping sincerity as Ali Abbas Zafar’s Gunday . Released in 2014, the film arrived with a title that promised raw, unapologetic machismo, and it delivered exactly that—a heady, loud, and often illogical cocktail of friendship, betrayal, song, and dance, all set against the sooty backdrop of 1970s and 80s Calcutta (now Kolkata).

Starring Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, and Irrfan Khan, Gunday is not a film that seeks critical validation for its realism. Instead, it aims for a different goal: pure, unadulterated entertainment for the single-screen audience. Does it succeed? Partially, yes. But it also serves as a fascinating time capsule of a particular brand of heroism that Bollywood was toying with—one that is as problematic as it is energetic. The film opens during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Two young boys, Bikram (Ranveer Singh) and Bala (Arjun Kapoor), lose their families and are forced to survive on the streets of Calcutta. Their bond forged in shared trauma, they grow up to become the titular Gunday —the undisputed kings of the coal mafia.

Gunday ultimately asks one question: Can two men share everything? The film’s loud, chaotic answer is… probably not. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun watching them try.

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For everyone else, it is a fascinating case study of Bollywood’s obsession with hyper-masculinity and the limits of the “buddy film” genre. It works as a guilty pleasure if you turn off your brain, but fails as a coherent drama.