It is the first part of the movie Gangs of Wasseypur, centered on the coal mafia of Dhanbad, and the underlying power struggles, politics and vengeance between three crime families from 1941 to the mid-1990s.

Part 1 stars an ensemble cast, featuring Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadda, Reema Sen, Piyush Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vineet Kumar Singh, Pankaj Tripathi, Huma Qureshi, Anurita Jha and Tigmanshu Dhulia.

[15] Although not an individual financial success, it is a combined gross of ₹50.81 crore that facilitated a modest commercial return due to its certificate.

The leader (Pankaj Tripathi) informs minister J.P. Singh (Satya Anand) that the family has been successfully executed but he is double crossed by JP as a firefight erupts between them and a police check post blocks their escape route.

The region was the domain of the faceless dacoit Sultana Qureshi who robbed British trains in the night and thus held some patriotic value for the locals.

In 1941, Shahid Khan (Jaideep Ahlawat), a Pashtun, impersonates the faceless dacoit, Sultana, a Qureshi, to rob British ferry trains.

Sardar (Manoj Bajpayee) marries Nagma Khatoon (Richa Chadda), with whom he has three sons: Danish, Faizal, and Babua (aka Perpendicular).

Eventually, Sardar, his cousin Asgar, and Nasir start working for J.P., Ramadhir's son, in order to secretly sell the company's petrol in the black market.

Eventually, Sardar returns home to Nagma, but she gets pregnant again and he leaves out of sexual frustration, instead going to his second wife, who gives birth to another son, Definite.

A thirsty Faizal wakes up in the middle of the night to find Nagma and Nasir having sex; feeling betrayed, he storms out of the house and becomes a stoner, permanently seen with his chillum.

Anurag Kashyap never has to resort to extraneous elements like stylised entries, editing patterns or camera motions to add to the effect because the story has an intrinsic impact of its own.

Lines like "Tum sahi ho, woh marad hai," ("You are right, he is male") said in resigned agreement to a wronged wife stand out for their cruel truths of rural life.

[28] Kashyap's use of occasional bursts of music and comedy to punctuate the slowly augmenting tension at different junctures is highly reminiscent of Spaghetti Westerns.

Kashyap's use of dark humour to judiciously propagate violence bears an uncanny similarity to Quentin Tarantino's style of movie-making.

[29] Absorbing styles as diverse as those of old-school Italo-American mafia classics a la Coppola, Scorsese and Leone, as well as David Michod's taut crime thriller Animal Kingdom,Kashyap never lets his influences override the distinct Indian colour.

The pacing is machine-gun relentless, sweeping incoherence and repetitiveness under the carpet as it barrels forward with hypnotic speed.

The scene where Reema Sen is charmed by Manoj Bajpai over her daily chores or the one where Nawazuddin goes on a formal date with Huma Qureshi are outrageously hilarious.

His sons - the brooding Danish and the doped-out Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) from Nagma, and the enigmatic Definite Khan (Zeishan Quadri) from Durga - will become key players in this revenge story.

"[43] Subhash K. Jha of IANS gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars, saying that "Brutal, brilliant, dark, sinister, terrifying in its violence and yet savagely funny in the way human life is disregarded Gangs of Wasseypur is one helluva romp into the raw and rugged heartland.

"[44] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, saying that "On the whole, Gangs of Wasseypur symbolizes the fearless new Indian cinema that shatters the clichés and conventional formulas, something which Anurag Kashyap has come to be acknowledged for.

"[45] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, concluding that "Bolstered by its riveting performances and its thrilling plot dynamics, this is a gripping film that seizes your full attention.

"[34] Mansha Rastogi of Now Running gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, commenting that "Gangs of Wasseypur works like an explosive leaving you wanting for more.

"[46] Madhureeta Mukherjee of The Times of India gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, saying that "Director Anurag Kashyap, in his trademark style of story- telling – realistic, with strong characters, over-the-top sequences, and unadulterated local flavour (crude maa-behen gaalis galore), gruesome bloody violence and raw humour – interestingly spins this twisted tale.

With a runtime this long, meandering side tracks and random sub-plots, countless characters, documentary-style narrative backed with black and white montages from actual history, it loses blood in the second half because of the Director's over-(self)indulgence.

"[48] Blessy Chettiar of DNA gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, commenting that "Even though there's so much going for Part 1, there's something always amiss, something that leaves you underwhelmed after all those expectations.

"[49] On the contrary, Raja Sen of Rediff gave the movie 2.5 stars out of 5, concluding that "It is the excess that suffocates all the magic, originality dying out for lack of room to breathe.

The genre it comes closest to then is an epic, spelt with a capital E, along the lines of saying Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, or this film's immediate inspiration Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002).

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "an extraordinary ride through Bollywood's spectacular, over-the-top filmmaking".

[51][52] Maggie Lee of Variety notes Kashyap never lets his diverse influences of old-school Italo-American mafia classics a la Coppola, Scorsese and Leone, as well as David Michod's taut crime thriller "Animal Kingdom," override the distinct Indian colour.

"[53] Lee Marshall of Screen International writes "the script alternates engagingly between scenes of sometimes stomach-churning violence and moments of domestic comedy, made more tasty by hard-boiled lines of dialogue like "in Wasseypur even the pigeons fly with one wing, because they need the other to cover their arse".