Pankaj Tripathi 5 Finest Performances

1.     Gurgaon:  Director Shankar Raman’s Gurgaon  gets it right immediately and ineradicably. This is  a   land of opportunity, and opportunism.There is a sense of  immediacy and doom in  the storytelling which coil themselves around the viewer from the first frame in  such a persuasive  manner that we are sucked into the tale although some of what happens here is done more for effect than out of an inner conviction. But the absence of credibility never  comes in the way of the storytelling that achieves an  unconditional littoral of pounding impact even when we see the bullet coming. Gurgaon reaches into the darkest interiors of its character’s yearnings and is not afraid to come up with unsavoury home-truths.Pankaj Tripathi , playing a  Brando-esque business tycoon whose legitimate professional activities barely conceals his inner world of simmering  murkiness, sets the pace for other actors to  follow.Tripathi who has so far played only economically challenged desperados with a touch of humour and irony , plunges into  his first truly dark role(from the Dhoti to  the Dressing Gown, so to speak)  with a vengeful intensity bringing to the patriarch’s part a Hamletian ambition guilt and destruction that never overwhelm  the narrative.Tripathy’s Kehri Singh is a study in unscrupulous self-advancement. He doesn’t hesitate to brutally kill his brother. But is  a doting fussing father to  his foreign-returned daughter .

2.     Newton: Pankaj Tripathi  was the  best thing to happen in  this  overrated  film where Rajkummar Rao in the title role,paying his homage to an all-time great actress Nutan(that is the character’s real name) got most of the footage.  Pankaj  as the  local government official impatient to get the election over it, imbues his  habitual brilliance  to the plot. Adding to the  flavour of unflinching realism  is the authentic  locations. The jungles virtually speak to us in every frame. Swapnil Sonawane’s cinematography denudes the magnificence  of the location to focus on the drama of the mundane.Pankaj gives to his bored character  a certain  aura  of world weariness that makes ennui  interesting

3.     Kaagaz:  If Kaagaz is watchable , it is only because of Pankaj Tripathi who seems to believe in his character’s bizarre struggle, even if we don’t. Seasoned actor that he is, Pankaj struggles to furnish the character’s weird predicament with a semblance of consistency. Kaagaz tells a very peculiar and poignant story of a man from Uttar Pradesh who spent 18 years of his life proving that he was alive. Unfortunately a bigger tragedy than the one that befalls Lal Bihari strikes this well-intended film on his life.

4.     Gunjan Saxena:  As  played by  the  brilliant Pankaj Tripathi the titular wannabe  flier’s  father   is   progressive without trying to be .He  trains  his daughter  into self-sufficient  glory.But  he also brings up the question of whether  woman  can  make  their dreams come true without any  male  assistance at all.Only Pankaj can pack all this into a  character  without crowding it.

5.     Mimi:  Pankaj’s comic timing is no surprise. Truly the chuckles when they  are  allowed  to  be,   are  the life  and breath of Mimi. Bolstered by  Pankaj Tripathi’s  feisty performances the film  succeeds  in drawing us into its  far-from-logical  plot  and keeping us  engaged. This  was Pankaj’s second film with  Kriti Sanon.There is a sequence in Bareilly Ki Barfi  where Tripathy, a diehard supporter of his daughter’s dumbed-down rebel act, laments that parents spend half their lives craving to see their daughters get married and then dread their going away. The sequence threatens to grow emotional. But is quickly taken off the tearful radar by Pankaj who can breathe life into a  comatose sequence.