Anurag Kashyap's ambitious Epic Gangs of Wasseypur is a lethally long and detailed view of the life of a single gangster family and not gangs exactly.

Spread across 7 decades and over three generations it tells an authentically made and wickedly enjoyable romp of violence, politics, power and sex.

The film begins in the early 40s with the genesis of the gangs getting formed between the Muslim communities of the Qureshis (Butcher clan) and the Pathans. Trying to take advantage of this divide is the local contractor of coal mines Ramadheer Singh (director Tingmanshu Dhulia).

As the film progresses, the three groups transition from one criminal activity to another and keep slowly increasing their enmity siding with one another. The Coal mafia point is lost midway and the criminal activities start ranging from human trafficking to even fisheries extortion.

What strikes from the word go is the sheer realism of the ganglands of Bihar from nearly perfect performances of the very believable Bihar characters, to the dress sense punctuated by what is an almost unheard of in your face soundtrack made up of local Bihari hits mixed in modern sounds, this is Anurag's best in terms of art direction (maybe only bettered by his far superior Black Friday)

There is so much going on in the movie that at times it's hard to enjoy all of it. The sexually crude songs playing constantly in the back ground, the numerous acts of violence (at times hard to connect) or for that matter the out and out vulgar dialogues spouted by pretty much all the characters of the film.

However there is one major drawback which makes the film's narration slightly uneven and over dependent on a poorly placed cricket-like commentary to bridge the gaps. For example not much is shown or discussed of how the coal mafia operated other than the commentary and thus we get only glimpses of how the other two gangs, The Qureshi's Butcher Gang (led by Sultan) and Ramadheer Singh's sophisticated political gang, are evolving.

Instead, the script chooses to spend almost incessant time on the family and life of the alpha male Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpai) including his long drawn out romance with the Bengali immigrant Durga (a very hot Reema Sen)

Sardar Khan's Feisty wife Nagma (played perfectly by Richa Chaddha) ends up having more screen space than the main antagonist Ramadheer Singh (who could have been a tour de force). In the end Ramadheer Singh comes across more as a weakling against a thug like Sardar Khan. A little hard to believe considering he's been a landlord for a long time and is a politician to boot.

I guess with the film being made by Anurag Kashyap, a lot of folks will tell you that this is an awesome film which could hype-kill the movie.

It is undoubtedly a masterstroke in terms of gritty depiction of the ganglands but it could easily have been a lot crisper and stayed a little true to its title.

You could also give a benefit of a doubt to the script considering there is the still to be released second part which requires the side characters to take centre stage and hence so much time spent on their development.

Of course, the 3 hour long film picks up in the last thirty minutes when the third generation begins to come into the fore in a godfatheresque fashion and the film ends with a perfect act of violence you would have expected a long time back.

The second part of the film will be released in a couple of weeks and rest assured that those who have seen the first part will flock to see how this saga ends in what should be a definite cracker.

To sum it up, don't go in expecting a master piece and you will thoroughly enjoy and even love the film.

Special Mention: Try listening carefully to the songs playing in the background esp. Womaniya and Hunter – tunes which refuse to leave your head.