Shootout at Wadala (2013)

What to know before you watch Shootout at Wadala

Shootout at Wadala 2013 is a Hindi crime action film written and directed by Sanjay Gupta. It works as a prequel to his earlier Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007), but you do not need the first film: this one goes back in time to a different underworld story rather than continuing the earlier plot.

Its hero is Manya, a student whose brother dies in prison. Pushed over the edge, he assembles a gang of his own and rises through Bombay's criminal circles. The material is loosely based on Hussain Zaidi's book Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia, and the climax is built around a 1982 police encounter in the Wadala area of Bombay. Because that encounter is part of public record, we deliberately say nothing about how the film stages it.

The word "loosely" matters. This is a stylised screen version, so treat it as a dramatised gangster picture, not as a documentary account of the real people.

A heavyweight cast

John Abraham plays Manya Surve. Anil Kapoor appears as police officer ACP Afaaque Baaghran, with Tusshar Kapoor, Manoj Bajpayee, Kangana Ranaut, Sonu Sood and Ronit Roy in other credited roles; Mahesh Manjrekar is also in the cast. Music comes from Anu Malik and others, and the cast list notes guest appearances in song numbers by Sunny Leone, Priyanka Chopra and Sophie Choudry.

The film was produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and White Feather Films. If you enjoy 1970s and 1980s period crime, the appeal here is the ensemble and the period styling; sources describe the film as heavy on slow-motion, moustaches and gunfire, which tells you the tone is operatic rather than restrained.

Release and where to find it

The film reached cinemas in the first days of May 2013; sources split between 1 and 3 May, so we give only the month. Runtime listings range from about 150 to 156 minutes, and no single certificate is consistently reported (the BBFC lists it as 18 in the UK). We did not verify a current streaming home, and platform catalogues change often, so search the title on your usual Indian platforms. Because it carries strong violence, it is not family viewing.

If you want more context before pressing play, the useful reading is the source book itself: Dongri to Dubai is a journalistic history of the Mumbai underworld, and it will show you how much a feature film must compress and invent. Fans of the genre often pair this film with its 2007 predecessor and later gangster dramas to compare how the same city is imagined in different decades.