The first-hour is power-packed, while the second-hour culminates with a nail-biting finale. The Faint-Hearted better stay away! Gupta's Screenplay is note-worthy & is engaging. Of course, the Action-Sequences are rustic & effective, but there is just too much of gore. The violence depicted on-screen appears real & horrifying. 'Shootout at Wadala' is extremely violent & disturbing. 'Shootout at Wadala' is based on the first-ever registered encounter by Mumbai police, where Gangster Manya Surve was shot dead, in Mumbai on 11 January 1982. Gupta handles the film well, while the Screenplay & Performances are note-worthy. Inspired from journalist S Hussain Zaidi's non-fiction book Dongri to Dubai, 'Shootout at Wadala', Directed by Sanjay Gupta, is An Engaging Action Film, that re-tells Late Gangster Manya Surve's bloodied story. Mildly interesting but not among the better Indian films I've seen-especially since after a while, the super-stylized action scenes seemed a bit too much. As for me, though, even without the songs I just didn't find the premise interesting and the characters seemed equally scuzzy-whether police, rival gangs or Surve's gang. However, the film was NOT made for me but for a billion Indians-and the producer/director probably knew what they were doing. For me, this is a fun cliché for romances but seems completely out of place in gritty crime films. It also features a strange convention that I've seen in most every recent Indian gangster film-they STILL take time for song and dance numbers like you'd see in a traditional Indian romance. And, since it was trimmed, the violence must have been pretty intense in the original-as it was still NOT a film for the squeamish. What I do know is that the story is very action-packed and very violent. I assume some police officials would probably take exception to this-though I really don't know. So, this monster was created by the police themselves according to the film. The film portrays him as an innocent man who was framed and sent to prison-where he learned quickly to be vicious in order to survive. The character Manya Surve was apparently a real gangster who was killed by the Mumbai police in the 1980s. As a retired history teacher, I wish the film hadn't equivocated and simply presented the best and most truthful story-and stood behind it. However, I could tell by what I read about reaction to the film as well as the prologue (where they admitted much of the film might not be true) that the film is based on reality.to a degree. The film is apparently based on a book, "Dongri to Dubai", and I have never read it and know very little about it. However, what still is in no doubt is that I really didn't like anyone in the film and didn't particularly care. HOWEVER, when I looked at the film listing on IMDb, it appears as if the airline decided to trim quite a bit of the movie!! Perhaps this might explain my confusion. I found it a tad confusing (the ending seemed rather vague).
I watched this film on a British Air flight from Europe.