The reason why GANGS OF WASSEYPUR will not immediately take its rightful place in the pantheon of Hindi cinema as one of the most daring, visionary, innovative and masterful films that Bollywood has ever produced, is because it is too long (at 2 hours 40 minutes) for kids looking for a fun way to while away a couple of hours, too gory for adults looking for "wholesome family entertainment", too complex even for movie critics who have to chew their pens all through the film, struggling to come up with catchy phrases to describe the film with, a film whose plot defies explanation, whose characters defy categorization, a film whose very existence, proves without a doubt, that Anurag Kashyap is not only a genius, but a mad, psychotic genius at that.

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is Anurag Kashyap's gift to the torrent-crazy cinema buffs of India. This film deserves (and requires) an audience prepared to give it the time and attention it needs, an audience which has gone in for the experience and nothing more, an audience which has gone in without moral inhibitions and an audience which can appreciate Kashyap's shattering of certain cinematic traditions and embracing of others, which makes the film such a delightful watch.

It would be incongruous, having called the plot too complex to explain, if I tried to do just that (i.e. explain), and indeed the task exceeds my ability. The massive, epic behemoth of a screenplay details the decades-long blood feud between Sardar Singh (Manoj Bajpai) and Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia), making detours into the workings of the coal mafia of Dhanbad, train-robbers, badland politics, romance, seduction and infidelity. These detours have been criticized by many critics, calling it the reason why the film is self-indulgent, overlong and needlessly complex. But it is those little moments, not really important in progressing the plot (and in the hands of a more commercial-minded director, would probably have been snipped) but magical in exposition of character, like a slow-mo dream sequence where two people reciprocate their mutual attraction by putting on matching Ray-Bans, or another scene where Sardar and his mates humiliate Ramadhir and his son in a police station, and then gleefully walk into jail as punishment (which jail they later break out of).

It has to be admitted, perhaps, that the editing scissors may have been sharpened in some places, but there is not much that can be cut off, which would not decrease the overall impact of the film. The film is a gargantuan experience, an epic in the truest sense of the term, an ambitious chronicle of the dusty hinterland of India over the period of six decades. And what's more, unlike most epics, not for one moment, did I realize how long the film was. It is that rare thing, a gripping epic thriller.

The acting is spectacularly good, whether it be Richa Chadda as Sardar's long-suffering feisty wife, Reemma Sen as Durga the seductress, Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Sardar's Michael Corleone-esque son, or Piyush Mishra as Sardar's uncle. But the meatiest two roles in the film, played by Bajpai and Dhulia, are transcendent. Dhulia stuns as the powerful mine owner-to-politician, spitting out expletives with a quiet venomous voice, so that waves of hate seem to emanating from the big screen. And what to say about the erstwhile Mumbai ka Don, Bhiku Mhatre? With one of his most powerful roles in recent times, Manoj Bajpai makes every second of his screen time count, running the gamut of emotions with the ease of a maestro, from lust to rage. His eyes say it all.

The behind-the-scenes departments are phenomenal here. Full marks to Sneha Khanwalkar's exquisite and innovative soundtrack, with songs like Hunter and Keh Ke Lunga (the movie's theme song, so to say), which break every tradition in Bollywood music, and complement the visuals beautifully. The production design by Wasiq Khan is also flawless, capturing the colours and textures of India's Hindi belt from the 1930s to the 80s. The mise en scene is spot on in every frame of the film, from the blood-spattered Kasai mohalla of the Qureshis to the white Ambassador of Ramadhir Singh. Kudos also the exquisite cinematography. Kashyap and his DOP Rajeev Ravi (No Smoking) create a restless roving camera, which swoops up and down and in and out in a delightful array of moves, some of which I have no idea how they did. The opening scene where a house is riddled with bullets and hand grenades, men poking rifles through holes in the doors and firing in every direction, is shocking in the immediacy of the violence. You are not just watching the scene, you are in it.

The film is filled with cinematic homages from a Disco Dancer-era Mithun impersonator to the last scene of the film, which is uncannily similar to the scene from The Godfather where Sonny Corleone gets assassinated. The shadow of The Godfather looms large over this film, many characters fitting the moulds of Vito Corleone, Tom Hagen or Michael Corleone. There is even a blood-thirsty Virgil Sollozzo-type among the multitude of characters in the film. But unlike Sarkar, GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is not a Godfather remake. This is a film unique to India, a story of an Indian town in the lawless badlands. As a cinematic experience, it stands tall beside Coppola's classic and calls out to be considered an equal.

At last, we have a Bollywood film (and make no mistake, this is a masala potboiler at its very best), that can flick the best of world cinema in the nuts. Now that is as good a reason to see the film as any. Long live the King of Alternative Bollywood, Anurag Kashyap!