Xtreme Vogue Mumbai Desk: Komal Qureshi
Star Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Smita Tambe, Megha Mathur, Tannishtha Chatterjee
Director: Devashish Makhija
What’s Good: When you’ve Manoj Bajpayee listed in the cast, asking what’s good gets kind of redundant
What’s Bad: This wouldn’t get much attention to be ignored as yet another ‘festival film’ which talks about the systematic imbalance, it’s more than that
Loo Break: This will keep you and your pants hooked till the end
Watch or Not?: Yes, to witness Manoj Bajpayee’s unmatched range
Language: Hindi
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 162 Minutes
User Rating:
“Kaunsi vardi jayaj hai, kaunsi vardi najayaj yeh pata karne mein sau saal lag jaayenge,” says a tribal who understands both sides – first of the Maoists and another those who oppose them, to Ratnakar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), a cop from Mumbai who’s in Jharkhand to arrest an on-the-run rebel.
Dasru (Manoj Bajpayee) is running for his life from Mumbai to Jharkhand after his wife Vaano (Tannishtha Chatterjee) gets killed, leaving a three-year-old infant with him. He’s running all his life. First, he ran from guns to accept a hard-working, measly-paid construction worker’s job. Now, he’s running from being framed as a murderer by the antagonistic spirits. He’s running from choosing a life he wasn’t given the option to choose.
Script Analysis
Devashish Makhija both writes and directs, giving a certain haunting coherence to the narrative. The leading couple humming the same song while in the good & worst times of their lives in the most contrasting way supports the spectral character Makhija injects into the script. The political undertones aren’t limited to the people in power winning the war against nature; they go deep into exploring the anarchism around the illegal migrants.
What Makhija does the best is making you ‘taste’ the film through its frames; I know it’s weird to hear this, but I’ll get there. When Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub’s Ratnakar drinks the ‘earthy’ water from the hand pump after requesting a Mineral water bottle, a dust-covered Dasru throughout and Piyush Puty running with his camera in front of Dasru in all the chase sequences to give you that first-person POV, it’s an immersive experience Makhija has designed to keep you hooked as a viewer as he talks about things those should matter.
Watch out for the ‘train chase’ scene, which is a masterclass teaching what a tight screenplay (Devashish Makhija), bullseye editing (Abhro Banerjee), and the handheld, dizzying cinematography (Piyush Puty) could do to deliver anotherworldly thrill. Whoever decided to place an emotionally torn, rusty Manoj Bajpayee sitting in front of a stone sign that reads “Bharat Ka Sanvidhan” quoting the constitution embossed in Hindi print deserves a special ‘idea by’ mention in credit – frame of the film for me.
Star Performance
The thing about good acting is that it’s really tough to spot it; when you see Manoj Bajpayee, you won’t be able to say he’s ‘acting’ his character; he remains what he plays. From Family Man to Bandaa to this, Manoj continues to serve the best dish possible with whatever ingredients you provide him.
After this, whenever you imagine a tired police officer who hasn’t been able to get any sleep for days is asked to work on a critical case, you’ll always think of Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub‘s fatigued face. The balance between wanting to go home to rest and uncovering the truth about a broken soul’s cursed life is skillfully managed by Ayyub. He acts exactly as much as it’s required for Ratnakar.
Tannishtha Chatterjee comes in like a warm, fuzzy day in this story of night, which is young & full of terrors. Though they’ll count this as her special experience, she’s as important as Manoj’s Dasru for keeping us interested in their heartbreaking love story.
Smita Tambe plays the tribal leader, a politician with a reason for revenge in Phulo Karma, and she’s on point with everything she does. From the way she sounds to the way she behaves, everything is a 5/5. Megha Mathur, as Bidesi, Phulo’s right hand, leaves the desired impact.
Direction, Music
The problems for director and writer Devashish Makhija lie in the nature of the film’s story. While the cat-and-mouse chase between Manoj & the system brings in thrills, the conflict behind it starts dragging the watching experience by being at the same level since the start. Direction-wise, almost everything is an A+, but the writer in Makhija falls into the routine trap of writing films with the purpose of touring different film festivals around the world.
Anubhav Sinha‘s regular composer, Mangesh Dhakde (Thappad, Mulk), gets behind the orchestra to score this gloomy, bleak background score, which haunts you throughout by playing violin in despair during the heavy-on-emotions sequences.
The Last Word
All said and done, this is one film you enjoy but can’t recommend to everyone because you know it’s a heavy watch & who better than Manoj Bajpayee to take you back from all the masala films’ outburst in the mainstream cinema to a world which exists but not everyone wants to be a part of it.
Three and a half stars!
