User Reviews

I saw it at a local film festival last night and thought it was quite good. It is probably one of the darkest Bolly movie I've seen. This is the opposite of a family movie -- the plot is very dark, characters very gray, and language very adult. It has a very realistic feel to it. Other than Ronit Roy it was all new faces on the screen. There is no likable character in the movie, but there are a few scenes where you can't help but empathize with their situation and find justification for their actions. There is a little bit of dark humor sprinkled throughout. This is not a movie for general audience, but if you enjoy dark movies that are good character studies then I'd highly recommend checking this one out.

Its a very nice movie, beautifully directed & very different (in a good way) from other Bollywood movies.

From the beginning itself your mind is not allowed to rest. You start with so many doubts and as the movie progresses some of them gets cleared up, but guess what now you have so many more. So just a suggestion, start the movie with your bladder cleaned up otherwise later on you'll be totally lost.

Good humor + full suspense + great acting + great direction, have been waiting for this for so long.

Thanks Mr. Anurag Kashyap for this beauty. Ronit Roy is a great actor, no doubt about that, and he has done wonderful acting here once again. But others are equally good.

It is one of the best to have come out of the Kashyap factory in terms of script and characters. It is one taut, dark, intense and disturbing tale of wretched nature of the human motives and how the grand plan has it's own way of laughing at those.

Interestingly Ugly through each of it's elements will take you back to Kashyap's previous works and remind you why he is truly the king. The brilliant script writing will remind you of Black Friday, Kashyap's first masterpiece. The excellent visual treatment, even though it's not a feature throughout the film is something without which any of AK's films is incomplete. The trippy background score by Brian Oncomber is the stand out feature in the second half of the film when the film begins to approach the tipping point.

Without doubt, the hero of the film is it's characters. Rarely would you come across a film full of complex characters, where the motives of every action of those characters get automatically clear as the story progresses. You do not know what to appreciate more, the courage with which the director is bluntly showing the depraved complexion of human nature or the ease with which that has been knit in a story.The non linear nature of the storytelling in the first half brings the necessary variation which adds to the build up.

Rahul Bhat who is seen on screen after a long gap tells you why there is no dearth of excellent character actors in the country, it's just that there are not enough roles for them. Vineet Singh, aka Danish Khan from GOW, will make you cringe and laugh with the expletive chain reaction. Ronit Roy, in his second powerhouse appearance in a Kashyap production, is perfectly cast. And one performance which is straight out of life is of Girish Kulkarni, as the police inspector. There is as much sincerity in his laugh as is in his sombre face. The one liners are so on mark that you would forget that there is a reel rolling.

Surely, the film has some of it's elements similar to that of Fargo, the classic Hollywood dark comedy, but it never plays on your mind, so it wouldn't qualify as lifting. Kashyapwa has done it again. Can't believe what made them to hold the film for so long.

Dear AK, you are the dark shining light of Bollywood. Keep'em coming

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.

So what is UGLY? Is it something like SHAITAAN, everyone has a UGLY side ..blah blah?? Or is it like Black Friday, pure reality of the system?? The best Kashyap's movie??

I would say it shows how great Anurag Kashyak is as a film maker. It is a cocktail of intensity and emotional finesse from the Korean Movies, the craziness from the Brazilian, the shock from the Italian and the Caos from Fincher.

The movie is so real, for an Indian audience he would not be surprised with a lot of things as he/she know the system, but he would definitely be surprised to see the limit of it, and to see what could be wrong. The movie shows the limit of efforts one can put and how desperate one gets. The humans are shown as parasites surviving on others, and how UGLY can they get for their survival and dreams. And when these dreams don't fulfill as planned things get UGLY

The movie is a really well written mystery thriller, the screenplay is amazing, the characters are real, and the acting is wonderful. Amazing work at the casting and background score.

There is no shaitaan side of people they are actually like that to the core -UGLY

Ugly, undoubtedly the best movie of Anurag kashyap till date, he manages to keep the suspense alive and bring across crucial twists. Ronit Roy steals the show with his best performance and all the cast especially, Rahul bhatt and Vineet kumar did great job. This is about how we tend to lose greater things in life because we are too stuck on our own perceptions. Directed in a very realistic way, I didn't find any flaws in this movie, everything is perfectly crafted in Kashyap style with no violence or gang-fights. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of dark thrillers, I am sure you wont get disappointed with Ugly though the movie is not at all ugly, in fact its a beautiful film with good message to society. I give it 10/10.

Ugly is one of the finest works from Anurag Kashyap. It continues to depict what he started with Last Train to Mahakali...and later with Paanch... - his love (and hate) for the dark side of human mind.

Ugly at its heart is a racy thriller, intriguing, loaded with dark humor and real, gray characters, as unpredictable as only humans can be. Technically its brilliant. And its as close as you can get to original in Bollywood world.

It keeps you glued to the screen for 130 min and leaves you numb when the show is over.

P.S. Definitely not for the lovers of Dhoom-3, Kick and P-K genre, who like their cinema light, escapist and with popcorn.

Before moving into the review, I would like to give you the story behind this latest Anurag Kashyap film UGLY, post the mediocre UNGLI and FUGLY having confusingly rhyming names. Ready long before these two films, UGLY made into Cannes and other festivals around the world early last year and got some extreme mixed reviews from many reputed names. So for records, it was not any unanimous applause received by the film which was largely being speculated & discussed here at the social media before its release. Perhaps this has become another norm of promoting the films here in India, when it comes to off-beat cinema not exactly targeting the masses.

Anyway even after its completion, the film could not release for so long due to probably more than one reason including Kashyap's fight against the compulsory insertion of "Statuary Smoking Warning" with the Censors. But since the torrent of the film was reportedly out before its official release and the court case also failed to deliver the desired results, UGLY was planned to be released just one week post PK since many a times only one choice of new film in the theaters, apart from the bigger one, does bring in the viewer trying the odd one out.

Coming on to the review, I frankly found myself standing among those who couldn't find it as brilliant as was being raved about since long and enjoyed it only as an above average thriller featuring a director's personal indulgence more than anything else. For instance, discuss it with a viewer or read any review in the media, they all would emphasize on three major points of the movie unarguably in the exact sequence mentioned below.

First, it has to be the 8-10 minutes long sequence of Police Station when a puzzled father and his friend is there reporting a missing girl child conversing with the station officer. The scene is surely one of the best interpretations of real life situations on the screen in the recent times superbly played by Girish Kulkarni as the ignorant inspector weirdly chatting about mobiles, computers and incoming call pictures instead of writing a complaint. And the way his attitude changes knowing that its about the step daughter of his own senior officer, simply points towards the questionable functioning of our police and their rude behavior.

Second comes the final shot of the film, revealing the cruel ugliness behind the mystery shaking you real hard as it has never been so brutal on the Indian screen before, in any 'crime thriller' or 'who done it' movie to be straight. In fact such is the jaw dropping impact of this particular aerial shot that it doesn't let you ponder back on the entire film catching its various flaws and one comes out of theater pretty impressed recovering from the unexpected shock received all of a sudden.

The third common point in any view or review would be the worth praising realistic performances by almost the entire cast led by Tejasvini Kolhapure from the front along with Ronit Roy and Rahul Bhatt. The supporting cast plays its own important role worth noticing in the tense proceedings. Still despite Ronit's flawless portrayal, he plays nothing fresh and now sadly is being offered the same roles of an angry father/officer one after another by our talented film-makers following the sick, ages-old pattern of Bollywood.

Revolving around all ugly but truthful characters that evidently are an unwanted part of our social structure, UGLY takes no time to come to its basic storyline dragging you in. But then keeps stretching on the thin plot with many interesting angles of wicked relationships thrown in failing to make any emotional connect with the viewer. As a result post intermission the erratic ego clashes, ill ambitions and extreme graphical violence takes over the basic theme dropping its overall pace and the director gets too much indulged in these all forgetting the poor soul kidnapped. Meanwhile, within this tension he also finds time to mock the use of item girl/songs in our Hindi films, inserting the 'must- have' skin show too featuring Surveen Chawla who is fast becoming the 'ready to shed her clothes girl' of the industry…… willfully. The camera-work gives the desired eerie feel to the film perfectly depicting the poor locales of Mumbai and Background score/Soundtrack is as raw as required with a fine mix of pop and rock both designed and used efficiently.

Hence UGLY stays an above average dark thriller mainly because it keeps exploring the cunning, greedy characters throughout missing that emotional touch one should feel thinking about the kidnap of that helpless kid girl. Following his fixed feature of ridiculing the system (found in his every movie), AK gets more involved in this very mission diluting the overall suspense factor in the film which returns only in its final five minutes and the closing shot providing that much needed shock to the viewers. In short watching all its twists and turns revealing the hidden nasty side of its various characters, the one person you forget to think about completely in those two hours is the poor girl kidnapped in the beginning.

Sharing honestly, I always see a bit of AK's first film PAANCH, hiding somewhere in his every attempt intentionally or unintentionally. Probably the fact that his first baby remains unreleased till date, not reaching the audience as he wished for, gives him immense pain affecting his thought process even today. And that makes me think that had PAANCH released normally more than a decade before, we would have had an entirely different Anurag Kashyap as a director, coming out of his own gritty shell of dark realism with more love, warmth and meaning in his exceptional films.

Anurag Kashyap delivers a disturbing & unsettling tale with 'Ugly', a film that's raw & realistic. Kashyap also aces with superb performances, led by Ronit Roy & Rahul Bhat.

'Ugly' Synopsis: A terrible tale of corruption, indifference, and systemic violence starts when 10 year old daughter of an aspiring actor disappears.

Throughly engaging & interesting, Kashyap creates a world of deception & cruelty, with absolutely no inhibitions. 'Ugly' is entirely grim & bleak, a film that has an atmosphere of its own. The characters are Grey, while the narrative is blunt & on-your-face.

Kashyap's Screenplay is excellent. Its entirely twisted & serious. I'd like to point out, the last scene of the film, it's haunting & the Screenplay peaks itself then. Kashyap's Direction is suitably creepy & eerie. Cinematography & Editing are perfect

Performance-Wise: Ronit Roy is outstanding as the cop. Displaying anger & frustration, with zeal. Rahul Bhat is a revelation. His performance here, deserves distinction marks. Tejaswini Kolhapure is brilliantly restrained. Vineet Kumar Singh is fabulous, yet again. Girish Kulkarni is highly effective. Surveen Chawla is effective, in a brief role. Siddhanth Kapoor is impressive. Late Abir Goswami is decent.

On the whole, 'Ugly' is a massive winner from Kashyap! He ends 2014, with a roar! Very Strongly Recommended!

This movie left you with the feeling of numb .Ugly sets a new dimension to the Indian Cinema . I am not a frequent watcher of Bollywood movies.But ugly movie is just beyond the ugliness of everything. A grungy, dark police procedural set in motion by a little girl's kidnapping, Ugly has few discernible auteur touches to set it apart from standard genre fare. Gone are the farcical, hyperbolic violence and the larger-than-life, tongue-in-cheek gangsters who modeled themselves on the movies. Gone is the wacky humor. Here the pettiness, egotism and corruption of modern Mumbai rule and the characters are all cheap and small—even the kidnapping victim is annoying. There may be a method here but if so, the result is very dark and downbeat for general audiences. The film's Cannes outing and Kashyap's cult standing could give it a little shelf life at festivals before it heads into genre venues. The cast of characters is presented haphazardly. Shalini (Tejaswini Kolhapure) is a desperate, middle-class housewife kept at home as a semi-prisoner by her macho police-chief husband Bose (Ronit Roy). She's about to blow her brains out with his gun when a knock on the door stops her. It's her daughter Kali (Anishika Shrivastava), whining for her to call her estranged father. This is Rahul (Rahul Bhatt), a down-and-out actor still waiting for his big break, who comes to take her for a drive. He's so distracted with phone calls he barely looks at her, and then he ominously leaves her alone in the car while he goes to talk business with his friend and casting director Chaitanya (Vineet Kumar Singh). Within minutes the girl is missing. Rahul becomes the hero by default as he searches for the girl, first through the police, then following the kidnappers' ransom messages. What little sympathy he inspires in the audience comes from his terrifying interview with local police captain Jadhav (played with gusto by the fine comic actor Girish Kulkarni). Instead of launching a manhunt for the girl, the captain absurdly chats about CELL PHONES and computers while the distraught Rahul chafes and Chaitanya attempts to cajole him into action. All at once, Jadhav realizes the missing girl is the stepdaughter of police honcho Bose, and his attitude switches to FBI pro. At this point the stone-faced Bose, who hates his wife's ex, orders him to accuse Rahul of the kidnapping and be beaten senseless. The rest of the film is a battle of wits between Bose and Rahul to find the girl while tripping up the other. Rahul and Chaitanya are monotonously arrested and rearrested. Police violence is graphic and frightening. They use the "latest" gadgets in their investigation— computers, CELL PHONES and GPS—like they were major novelties on CSI: Miami, which makes it seem the film is aimed mainly at local audiences. There is, however, a continuous sense of vitality and movement in the film, whose action scenes are foot chases filmed from a distance. Kashyap's nasty point is that, between violence, greed and corruption, just about no one is innocent in the end. Certainly all the characters are selfish beyond belief. This existential cynicism hits home in the horrific crime revealed in the last shot, but by that time, the emotions feel light-years away.

Good movie. Everybody acted very well in the movie. The movie was so interesting and thrilling. The movie has many interesting scenes. At 1st half the movie was so interesting than 2nd half. The movie lagged at 2nd half. BGM in the movie was also good. Fight scenes in the movie was also good. Good Movie.

The year 2014 has its last release on its last Friday, named Ugly, a suspense thriller movie by Anurag Kashyap. He is known for his dramatic, unique, bold and dark flicks. I have mostly seen all his films, but, however this film is very different and so much dark. In trailer, we can conclude the storyline of Ugly. A girl is missing from the market, whose parents are not staying together. She lives with her mom and her step father. Everyone except this girl has dark sides, dark past. So when the girl got missing the girl's step father who is an IPS, starts finding her among her relatives. The story is very very fast, no one can move their eyes from the screen not a single second. Will the girl be found ? Who kidnapped her - her father, mother or anyone else? In the end, you will get the answer. & I'm sure, the answer will be so disturbing for all of you. As per my experience, you can not able to stand up instantly after the end. Ronit Roy as an IPS & as a step-father & as a woman's second husband - in all three shades, he is just outstanding. His expressions when he shows his anger are too good. Rahul Bhat is an impressive actor, he plays the lead role brilliantly. Dark shades under his eyes and beard face look describes the dedication from him towards his role. Tejaswini perfectly suits in her role. Vinit Singh is as usual fantastic. Surveen Chawala is good. Others are also good. I have to mention an actor, who plays the role of DCP Gupta, Abir Goswami. He is just fabulous in his role. The 4-5 minutes scene where Rahul and Vinit explain the incident in the police station, is just hilarious. I couldn't control myself & just laughing. OMG! What a scene! This scene deserves 5/5 from my side. Anurag Kashyap again proved that he is the king of making dark and period films. His direction as well as writing is very sharp. Screenplay, dialogues, background music - everything is extraordinary. Specially that music when the police is catching the man dancing in underwear. So, brilliantly scripted, extraordinary directed & perfectly executed film Ugly deserves 5*/5*. But, this film is not for family audiences or those who can't see Ugly things.

This is one of the best multilayered dark thrillers I have seen in my life. In the limited budget they fabulously crafted this story. This film will keep you engaged throughout. And this film will haunt you for several days. This is one of the gem film of anurag kashyap.

Even the most expensive special effects cannot match 1% of what viewers can create simply with their imagination. Very few directors have the skill to use this ability of the audience. Unseen is always a lot more scary and disturbing than seen.

There is a 5 minute scene in first half of Ugly. It has no dialogues. There is hardly any action. But it will chill your bones and you will remember it for a long time. It is worth watching Ugly, just to experience the skill of the director in this one scene.

Anurag is truly the gangsta of Hindi cinema. He drags his audience to ultra real, scary and uncomfortable places to meet and confront demons who look just like people you see every day.

Ugly's world is a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone is in it for themselves. They will sell their best friend and his kids to the highest bidder in the blink of an eye.

If you enjoyed Black Friday, Dev D, Gulaal and Gangs of W, you will enjoy Ugly. If you did not, then it is best to stick to Mega Entertainer Sal Khan's movies.

The grim reality of today's world. The greed of the individuals or the materialistic nature of the individuals involved has been aptly depicted. Seldom has a movie, made me sit and stare blankly to the walls and ponder about life, human nature and human behavior.

All the characters have done justice to their part. Starting from the estranged couple with a child to the lackadaisical police to the opportunistic friends.

Everyone got so much involved in their own life and their insatiable greed that they couldn't tend to the task at hand.

This movie is not for everyone.

The last time a movie made me introspect like this was 'Tumbbad".

Best of AK: Howone can miss this masterpiece.The film's background score and music were composed by Brian McOmber and G. V. Prakash Kumar respectively, while Gaurav Solanki wrote the lyrics. Nikos Andritsakis served as the film's cinematographer and Aarti Bajaj was its editor. Kashyap had the idea for the film since 2006 and started writing the script after talking to one of his friends, who was in the Special Task Force, Lucknow, about kidnapping cases. He chose actors who could connect with the characters in the film.

This is one of the brilliant works of Anurag Kashyap! The background music is eerie and the narration is top notch. The movie is about finding a missing girl and what makes this thriller work is the complicated relations between the characters. The plot slowly builds up and turns into a game of greed and relationship issues. The climax is unpredictable and bang on. One of the finest movies to watch!!

You know I have always believed that films which are for everybody are for nobody in particular, that being said Anurag Kashyap's Ugly isn't for everybody unlike PK or other big releases. Ugly is filled with dark, complicated, insecure characters wherein everybody is either a flawed husband/ wife/ parent/ friend/ lover this makes the characters instantly relatable even though there is some exaggeration in the film. The story starts with the kidnapping of a little girl which sets into motion a chain of events where her new step father and her biological father engage in a game of upmanship and try to be the "hero" as the movie likes to put it by finding their daughter but they care more about satisfaction of their egos and their history dating back to college than about the girl herself. In between the movie throws in a suicidal wife who has been loved by both the men, an item girl whose claim to fame is a song called mujhko nichodley jhinnjhodley, technologically challenged cops, some really dark but really funny scenes and this film is already brimming with top notch quality. The direction is excellent and the sets are claustrophobic and uncomfortable in tune with the film and all the actors deliver.

My only gripe with the film is that it fails to be a decent kidnapping story, it's so focused on character development that the kidnapping events at points seem illogical and improbable and the Alfred Hitchcock fan in me can't forgive that though the Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritichie fan in me doesn't mind.

Brutal ending tells the psych of A.K. End of the film remains in the mind for a long time after watching the film. It is so ugly that I couldn't stop myself from starting the review with the end first.

No matter what you are trying to convey the message, the ending should be handled with care.

Film is hard hitting and while watching AK's films you constantly feel the znnnnnnnzzzzznnnnnnn......... a current running in your body. All characters are ugly, and can fall to lower levels without any thought. This world is not so good, and has both good and ugly sides to it. One needs to be aware of evils in our society. Parents need to take good care of their child or it can be too late. Never leave your child alone, never ever, neither in home nor in market or otherwise.

Movie comes with some very important messages. First : Never marry unless you have a consistent source of income, Second : Never grow your family unless you have a decent bank balance, Third : Never leave your kids alone and give them enough balanced knowledge about how to protect themselves, Fourth : If anyhow you have grown your family, then stop experimenting with life and settle down at any cost.

Ronit Roy is terrific and is one of those many under-rated actors. Hopefully this movie will bring more good roles to him.

Thriller quotient is very high and keeps you edge of the seat all through. Right before start of the movie you start feeling goose bumps. Dub this movie in English, and you have a Hollywood pot boiler.

Inspector who supports Ronit Roy is terrific. Humor is limited and up-to the mark, and actually makes you laugh.

Watch only if you can handle ugliness for more than 2 hours. And leave the theater before the end. You will come to know when you will reach the end.

My only appeal to AK : Always keep endings happy !