Ugly (2013)

The case of a missing girl takes us through a journey of human greed and brushes upon the egos and repressed emotions of the characters.

Director:

Anurag Kashyap

Writers:

Akhilesh Jaiswal (additional writer), Anurag Kashyap

Stars:

Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure

Top Rated Indian Movies #107 | 3 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rahul Bhat	...	Rahul Kapoor
Ronit Roy	...	Shoumik Bose
Tejaswini Kolhapure	...	Shalini Bose
Viineet Kumar	...	Chaitanya Mishra (as Vineet Kumar Singh)
Surveen Chawla	...	Rakhi Malhotra
Siddhant Kapoor	...	Siddhant
Sandesh Jadhav	...	Rane
Anshikaa Shrivastava	...	Kali Varshney (as Anshika Shrivastava)
Murari Kumar	...	Shrilal The Baloon Guy
Abir Goswami	...	A.C.P. Gupta
Madhavi Singh	...	ACP Upadhyay
Manoj Kolhatkar	...	ACP Khanwilkar
Ajay Purkar	...	ACP Godbole
Girish Kulkarni	...	Inspector Jadhav
Jayant Gadekar	...	Inspector Direkar

Storyline

The film portrays the kidnapping of a little girl of 10, who is out with her father for the day. Her parents are divorced and her stepfather (a cop) steps in for the investigation. The suicidal mother has an ax to grind with both her ex-husband and her current husband. As the investigation proceeds, the characters are placed in sordid scenarios that reveal their unsavory sides; the mind games between the both the fathers in particular lend the procedural its most gripping drama as everyone else is getting greedy and ugly not caring about the kidnapped girl.

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Plot Keywords:

daughter | casting director | actor | police | missing girl | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Alia Bhatt did appeared in the movie for seconds and given thanks in the credits for her appearance.

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Goofs

When Rahul is given 50 lakhs by the police to hand to the kidnapper, the amount should have been 20 lakhs instead. A few scenes before we see the police catching Shalini's brother who had actually demanded the 50 lakhs. So, that would leave the police with the phone call (by Rakhee) the source of the real kidnapper. And Rakhee had actually demanded 20 lakhs, not 50.

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Connections

References Crazy Mad Lover (2011)

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Soundtracks

Papa
Singer: Shilpa Rao
Lyrics by Gaurav Solanki
Composed by G.V. Prakash Kumar and Brian McOmber

User Reviews

Ugly - An ugly state of affairs in the lives of ordinary people

Anurag Kashyap yet again proves that he is in a league by himself among accomplished Bollywood directors. Lately in Bollywood there has been a surge in talented writers/directors creating movies that steer away from typical Bollywood glitz, glamor and grandeur. These glamorous movies appeal to the delusions of most of the Indian audience. But audience who take movies as a form of art and source for inspiration can see through the bling and realize that the substance is utterly lacking. Writers/Directors like Kashyap do not have audience in their mind when they create movies, they cater their work for themselves, which in my opinion brings the best out of any creator of art.

Ugly is a tale of ordinary lives involved in extraordinary circumstances. It starts out with a missing child followed by sequences that will make you utterly hate some characters initially. But as the movie unfolds and characters develop on screen, opinions on most of the characters will gradually change. This is a rarity in Bollywood movies, because many of them have characters that are purely good or evil. There is no middle ground, everything is looked as black or white and 30 minutes into the movie you can predict the plot by connecting dots between good and bad characters. But what if you start watching a movie where characters are constantly evolving on screen and every character has some evil and some nobility to him? That is when things become unpredictable and keep you on the edge of your seat if it is a thriller like this story is.

Greed and desperation, combined with poverty has a way of bringing out monsters in people you would usually deem as normal. Let me go ahead and say that you will find no character likable in the movie. Correction, I liked all the characters, but I could not root for any of them. But if I had to make an exception I would say one character would come out in a positive light by the end of the movie, even if there is some evil to him/her.

This movie is very condensed and concentrated with many raw, heavy hitting scenes that prompt vivid reactions from expressive audience. The plot is captivating and progresses linearly, with some retrospection in-between. Kashyap manages to have his audience on the edge of their seats 15 minutes into the movie. If you are a sucker for suspense thrillers like I am, you wont be leaning back for the rest of the movie. Kashyap also compels you to empathize and cringe at the plight and despair of characters, a lot of which is brought onto them by themselves.

Kashyap is a master at writing characters and finding impeccable actors to bring them to life. The lack of make up combined with many improvised scenes give a "real life" rawness and experience you are not used to in Bollywood movies. The movie "Apocalypse Now" where the character played by Marlon Brando talks about "the horror" is a scene that resonates deeply with audience. That was an improvised scene played by Brando who hardly could remember the lines and thus improvised in front of cameras to give us arguably the greatest scene ever. Kashyap obviously understands the positives of improvisation and lets his extremely talented cast do their thing. I only hope these actors get the recognition they deserve.

All in all, Ugly is the best Bollywood has to offer for the year 2014. I can confidently say that without even watching 99% of Hindi movies that came out in 2014. It is entertaining and inspiring. I wish I could meet Mr. Kashyap in person and thank him for all the wonderful creations. He is one of the very few reasons I still bother with Bollywood. I wish he managed to squeeze in Kay Kay Menon and Manoj Bajpai somewhere, that is the only (silly) complaint I have about this movie.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Release Date:

26 December 2014 (India)

Also Known As:

Bjaurus

Filming Locations:

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Box Office

Budget:

$1,475,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

DAR Motion Pictures, Phantom Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1