Netflix’s Guns & Gulaabs Review: Rajkummar Rao shines in a mediocre Raj & DK series

Language: Hindi Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, TJ Bhanu, Satish Kaushik, Vipin Sharma, Gushan Devaiah, Adarsh Gourav, Pooja Gor

Director: Raj & DK

Filmmakers Raj & DK has a style of their own. This series can boast of a  cast who are known for their craft and more than just being stars, they are actors. But this time, I guess not much thought was put into the writing of the script. Netflix’s Guns & Gulaabs lacked the zing and fines required for the cinema educated audience. Just stuffing the show with good actors doesn’t help.  

I always believe to have a show on the digital platform, increases the expectation of the audiences who has an understanding of cinema. We are not ready to take anything and everything that you give us -be it your mindless dhushum dhushum or silly romance. We need matter that is engaging. As for _Guns & Gulaabs, t_he storytelling is confusing and lacks depth. And the women actors in the show were not given enough time on screen and their parts were near to negligible. It is a fine celebration of pulp fiction, but the storyline somehow massacres the fun. In  _Guns & Gulaabs_ , Rajkummar Rao plays a mechanic who is a good-hearted simple soul and wants to run away from the clutches of his mafia father. The movie starts with the murder of his father. He doesn’t feel like crying because he never respected or loved his father. He struggles to be different from his late father. He plays the role of a motor mechanic who is deeply in love with the English teacher of Gulaabganj (a fictional town), Chandralekha and there is something very innocent about him and the way he bribes a school boy to write a love letter which he gives to his love. His expressions are classic and he has this massive talent of getting into the skin of the character which rules the otherwise dead script. On the other hand, we have Adaresh Gourav , an immature man who is in a hurry to prove to the world that he is the next big drug mafia like his father. He doesn’t understand business and at the same time he doesn’t know how to develop relationship with his own people and the police. Too full of himself, he ends up having clashes with his own people who doesn’t take him seriously. The dialogues are witty, but the story is directionless and not so engaging. One episode after another, you just wait for the story to build up, but it fails massively. The seven-episode series is just too stretched and the meaningless abuses are just too distasteful.

Starting with the character assassination of the actors and their performances, I believe Dulquer Salmaan ’s character was the least complex according to me. It was a little out of place too. An actor of his caliber could have been given a much more layered role. Gulshan Devaiah ’s character of Atmaram was interesting and he looked like a poor version of Sanjay Dutt. I somehow felt that not enough justice was done to the role of the late Satish Kaushik. His character has been the most underexplored. We can understand the filmmakers love for all things that belonged to the 90s like audio cassettes, pop songs, love letters sprayed with Pink Mamba perfume and Campa Cola, but where is the meat I may ask?

But, the best part of Guns & Gulaabs is when the story keeps shifting on and off to the teenage love story in school  where the students are experiencing their first love and heart breaks too. It brings back childhood memories of school days when we all used to play FLAMES. Another positive of the series is creating an era, we all yearn to go back to i.e. the pre-internet era of love letters. I believe that was the golden era, when we never felt the need to be connected with our families, friends or even lovers all the time through our mobile phones. And that is the magic of nostalgia which the series was able to re-create. Had the makers concentrated more on that rather than the killing and shooting mindlessly, I think it would have been a much better series. Rating: 2 and half out of 5