Charming and brutal

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Interested and realistic movie to watch, some scene were predictable (for say snatching of drug bag from deep) but overall movie is good except the end story of deep and and sukhjeet which seems left incomplete

Review by Punjabi Mania-Qissa Panjab is a multi narrative contemporary film set in Punjab. It explores the lives of six young people, their hopes, aspirations and dreams. Arjun (Preet) is a rich young boy into substance abuse and his only ambition is getting his next fix. Deep (Aman) is a basketball player whose life suddenly puts him on a completely different path. Kismet (Kul) is a struggling dancer who aspires to be a great actress one day. Speed (Jasjeet) is a petty thief who nurses a dream to migrate to Italy. Sukhjeet (Harsjot) is a young orphan struggling to finish her studies. Heera (Dheeraj) is a singer who wants to make it big in the world of music. The lives of these six people cross each others in myriad twists and turns to an unexpected ending.Review: Jatinder Mauhar, known for making films which are youth centric and are associated with characters who exist in reality within the roots of Punjab is back again with his 3rd film aptly titled Qissa Panjab. His earlier work although appreciated by the youth but couldn't meet with commercial success due to whatever reasons. But this film, has all those elements of gaining appreciation as well as finding commercial success. Let's analyse.Story-Screenplay-Dialogues have been penned by debutante Uday Pratap Singh. Uday seemed pretty clearer in his mind regarding what he wanted to write and his screenplay is pretty crisp and doesn't have any margin for errors whatsoever. His story is set in a village in near Ropar. It tells a tale of 6 characters and how the events which occur in their lives connect those lives to each other. Also I would like to mention the dialogues of the film. They language used here is a kind of Punjabi which I haven't heard in any film before. It is so much connected to the roots of Punjab. Thankfully, I had a friend with me who explained me the meanings of various dialogues.Jatinder Mauhar, well this is best work so far out of the 3 films which he's made. I remember walking into Sikander with tons of expectations but I was let down but here I had the same expectations and it was surpassed making up for the last time's disappointment. He has very cleverly used the mystic climate of January-February as a character. You don't realise it until you have been in the film for some 20-30 minutes. Right from the very 1st scene to the very last scene you are glued to the film. Also the length of the film has been kept close to 99 minutes giving it another reason to watch this short and crisp film. It's not like Hero Naam Yadd Rakhi where you had 25 minutes of songs, 25 minutes of story and some other silly things in a 100 minutes narrative. Mauhar is out to tell a story and he succeeds in doing that in 99 minutes itself.Coming to the performances, this is a character driven film. The film relies more on the expressions. emotions and dialogue delivery of the artists rather than songs and background score. Preet Bhullar as the druggie impresses this time around in his second outing. Aman Dhaliwal makes a confident on-screen debut as Deep. I am quite impressed by Jagjeet Sandhu. After RGTG, he's out there in a months time to impress again. Long road ahead if he keeps performing like this. Harsh jot also makes a confident debut. Dheeraj Kumar too impresses with his acting as well as singing abilities. Kul Sidhu is a very fine actress. However, till now she hadn't got many roles to show her acting talent on a mass scale. This film surely shows how talented she is. Rest of the star cast pretty unknown but is impressive. Speed's jail mates, Deep's brother, Sukhjeet's family, Kul's parents were all impressive.Coming to the music of the film, Gurmoh has composed the music here. The lad from Jalandhar came into limelight in 2012 with Pure Panjabi and now finally has his redemption. Easily a complete package album which has just 5 tracks but all 5 have a meaningful story to tell if you go deep into finding the meaning of the lyrics. Be it Jinde Meriye by Nooran Sisters or Rog by the legend himself, Gurdas Maan or even Manna Mand's Rutt Pyaar Di. All these tracks are marvelous.And this film is not about drugs as it is being written in the media. It's the journey of 6 characters.Final Say: Qissa Panjab is one such type of a film which will force you to think and you would want to question your inner self that are we going on the right path especially if you are from my age group (20-25). Jatinder Mauhar's visionary direction has been backed by powerful performances. Each and every character has their own story to tell. Clever use of realistic storyline makes it a must watch!

There are many positives associated with this project in terms of its relation with the present alarming state of Punjab, the team's noble intentions and their efforts breaking the set routine pattern of 'Punjabi Cinema' at this particular moment. So first of all would like to congratulate the makers for finding the courage to invest their time and money both in such crucial experimental (regional) project having something significant to convey to the youth of Punjab caught in the deadly web of drug mafia since the last decade. Admitting the truth, I seriously wished to support and applaud the film wholeheartedly due to the message it gives, representing the harsh ground reality of the state (witnessed personally). But the overall execution of the concept doesn't allow me to praise it as loudly as I wished, beyond a specific point.Following the western pattern of '4-5 different stories amalgamating towards an open climax' (seen in many foreign classics and few recent Indian films too), QISSA PANJAB revolves around 6 individual characters fighting with their own problems of life ranging from family issues, local crimes, college fights and career struggles to the foreign intrusion in the drug trade involving the innocent youngsters. The director opens too many ends together in the initial 30 minutes and then isn't able to manage them all in a justified manner in the limited duration of less than 2 hours. As a result, many questions remains unanswered and many characters remain underdeveloped unable to reach out to the viewers as they were supposed to.Besides, the overall treatment of the subject remains too slow and dark following a forced experimental path using cinematography as a tool to give it a more 'artistic' feel. In the first half the film uses almost negligible background score and in the next has some average composing not helping the film as required. No doubt all the talented actors in the cast try to give their best in the assigned roles such as Dheeraj Kumar as the folk singer, Kul Sindhu as the small time dancer, Jagjeet Sandhu as the petty thief and Harshjot Kaur as the concerned sister rendering some noticeable dialogues. But no actor can ever deliver a worth remembering performance in a film, if his or her character is neither well defined on the paper nor well presented on the screen with a proper buildup providing the much needed support.Musically QISSA PUNJAB scores with its melodious songs intelligently incorporated in the film having a strong traditional base like Jinde Meriye, Boliyan and Rut Pyar Di. Plus the soundtrack also includes a well written Gurdas Mann track titled Rog. But a mostly saturated colour scheme preferred in its DI just to give it an off-beat look actually doesn't help, taking the film further away from the general viewers.Coming back to the weak characterizations, director Jatinder Mauhar introduces each and every character in the film with an impressive sequence but that impression doesn't continue later in their other scenes reducing the overall impact of the characters as well as the film. For instance its quite exciting to see how the folk singer walks on to the stage after a few drinks cursing his own fate as the organizer is ready to pay only half the amount, but the same excitement isn't there anywhere in the film post these initial moments.Explaining the problem with QISSA PANJAB in more details as a concerning viewer/supporter of Punjabi Cinema, it all depends upon how well we are able to define our target audience for whom a certain project is being planned and invested in. Making it more specific, there are two kinds of end-users or final consumers a thoughtful director should have in mind (in marketing terms). One is the thinking or festival audience which is so less in number that it can rarely result in any major box office success to be brutally honest. And second are the general viewers who are simply coming to the theaters for their three hours of entertainment, capable of turning any kind of enjoyable film into a blockbuster. Now in case you are planning a film with a strong social message, then you have to be very clear about the kind of viewers you are looking for. In other words, whether its only the thinking audience or the common man you wish to show your film to.Giving a known example, it's perfectly fine if a director intentionally makes his film for only the 'thinking and festival' audience, like Gurvinder Singh's "Anhey Ghodey Da Daan" that won several honours all over the world but couldn't do anything in the theaters even when it was widely publicized after winning a national award. And its equally fine when a director wishes to make a film like "Sardar Ji" or "Jatt James Bond" too, simply focusing at the general public providing them the desired entertainment. In both these cases the target audience is pretty clear in the mind of director as it should be.However the problem arises, when one wishes to cater both these kind of audiences together with a film talking about some serious social issue, which remains one of the most difficult task in the present times, when the viewership is completely different from what it used to be a couple of decades back. And this confusion over its target audience only is exactly the problem with QISSA PANJAB that struggles to impress either of the two completely, generating an average kind of impact that isn't able to make any major ripples.In short, yes QISSA PANJAB isn't any artistic milestone of Punjabi Cinema lacking that magnetic pull. Yet it's indeed a well- intentioned product made by a talented team that is just close to deliver a classic gem. So would be certainly looking forward to their next project with much bigger hopes.