Hoichoi

TANGRA BLUES REVIEW : AN ENTERTAINING MUSICAL THAT TRIES TOO HARD TO BE MORE

First off, Tangra Blues may be a musical, but it has nothing to do with the African-American genre of music the name seems to imply. It’s more about slum rappers a la Gully Boy. In fact, the film seems to have drawn quite a bit of inspiration from the Ranveer Singh film, right down to the shooting of a video of the slum rappers and the role of a female musician in taking the band to greater heights.
The film tries to cover a lot of ground in mapping the tumultuous history of Tangra since the EM bypass’ construction began, but somehow, it fails to delve deep into it. The result is an almost comical portrayal of the allegedly brutal land mafia in the area. It’s really difficult to take the so-called gang leaders seriously and in the process, the film loses part of its ‘rising against all odds’ angle. Once this bit is out of the way, the rest is basically a saga of opportunities missed and cashed in on.
Music composer Anindit Roy, however, has done a terrific job with the rap pieces and the accompanying percussion. The music makes the film a fun watch, and of course, the performances by the young actors Samiul Alam (as Chalu), Oishani Dey (as Pori) and others. Samiul, especially, is a treat to watch as he goes about portraying the character of a boy focused on creating great music and rising above their shabby living conditions, and also as a confident rapper on stage.
Parambrata, too, is at his poignant best as the man with a violent past who teaches the slum boys and girls his kind of music. On the other hand, Madhumita is good, but her character speaks these fast and fluent English sentences while conversing with Sanjib and his band members, who, going by their character sketch, shouldn’t be able to understand a word of it. But they still react to these monologues, which is kind of strange. No one once says that they can’t understand her or that she should speak in Bangla.
All said and done, Tangra Blues is a decent watch with ample room for improvement though it definitely belongs to a genre that needs more exploration in the Bengali movie space.