Nomadland Review

In Nomadland, writer and director Chloé Zhao turns a romantic idea into a searing tragedy of monotony. The idea of nomadic bliss is confronted by the brazen reality of life and ageism, making the picturesque backdrop, and the impenetrable silence of a place distanced from human habitation a harsh contrast to the brooding, bulldozed lives we see on screen.

Set in 2011, Nomadland is as much about the cruel aftermath of the 2008 recession, as it is about the idea of fading optimism of old age. For a film where most characters are senior citizens, Fern (Frances McDormand) – sixty-one – is one of the youngest character in the film. After losing her husband, job, and delegitimizing of her town, Fern decides to become a nomad.

She designs her van to make it into her home, as she travels across United States of America, doing part-time jobs to earn enough to sustain her travels. On the road, she meets fellow nomads who are all bruised in their own way, but have found a common way of healing – de-stabilizing themselves from the normative life of geographic stagnancy and opting to be on the road as a form of living.

Zhao uses this base to introspect the fragility of ageing, while questioning the importance of communal presence in one’s life after the loss of all that gives us a sense of our identity. In one of the most beautifully written scenes of the film, Fern’s sister questions her decision to stay in the same town after her husband’s death, saying that she wished Fern returned to her sister, and did not become a nomad, instead.

Fern, almost devoid of any identity that finds its reflection in a human companion, fails to justify her choice. It is tough to rationalize one’s decision to mourn, instead of moving on. And yet, as Bob (Bob Wells playing himself) says to Fern in another fantastic scene, one should never apologize for not wanting to move on.

In that moment you could see that Fern is closer to Bob, than she is to her sister. In becoming a nomad, then, Fern – and in extension other old people (many of whom are real-life nomads) – find their way to a kind of truth that is often lost in finding our present selves in the company of family, and friends who may not quite understand our present self.

For a long time Nomadland feels like it belongs to another time. Cinematography by Joshua James Richards contrasts the tragedy with detailed natural beauty, as if this is a world not tainted by the capitalist lust. Not anymore, at least. Here are people who reside on the wrong side of a money-minting world. They are the outcasts in a world obsessed with settlement and regularity.

For Fern, and her fellow nomads, settling down is not an option. Life, for them, is about continuing to be on the move. Interestingly, the same cannot be said about the film. Unlike the nomads it talks about, Nomadland is purposefully stable. The camera moves languidly, the scenes are cut only when the audience is deeply, intimately involved in the scene. There are long stretches where the story refuses to move, forcing us to feel Fern’s melancholy, and loneliness, despite having that softened smile on her face.

It helps that the film is powered by an unforgettable performance by Frances McDormand. Mc.Dormand gives an understated, lived-in performance that is so natural, and unassumingly powerful that it almost runs at the risk of not being recognized as a great performance. She carries the loss of someone you love in every little nuance of Fern, while maintaining a brutal zest for life, and love.Nomadland is in no way for everyone, but it is for all those who have the patience for a rewarding tribute to the departed, and those who want to like life on their terms as they head towards an inevitable departure. Like the characters in the film, the treasure of the film lies not in the larger repetitiveness of life, but in the little moments, and bonds, and conversations we share with the platform of cinematic storytelling in those little, faintly recorded moments of a story.

Footfairy Review

In Footfairy director Kanishk Verma attempts to deliver a classified noir thriller rooted in the very cultural reality of India. It is a story of a serial killer, recognized only by his black hoodie and khaki pants, in a city that is famed for its busy, relentless life that runs away like a tornado with so much, that the very essence of the city is not hindered by a few women being strangled to death and put in a suitcase, with their foot cut apart.

The film succeeds in moments. It finds the core of its genre quite impressively in the fabric of Indian diaspora. The setting is quite good, and the opening sequence is worthy enough to set the mood of the narrative appropriately. The antagonist is a black void hiding behind a hoodie, and the narrative quickly jumps to Vivaan Deshmukh (a fantastic Gulshan Devaiah), a CBI officer, introduced to us quite clumsily as the Sherlock Holmes of the Central Bureau of Investigation. It is a big title to live up to. A classic case of a fictional character thrown out lazily, only to weigh the character, and the narrative under the expectation of such a heavy claim.

The rest of the film runs on a thin premise, pulling one red-herring after another, hoping that the noise will hide the fact that essentially, Vivaan Deshmukh is quite a naïve, unworthy detective. He runs after a taxi-driver theory that looks wrong from a mile away, and then pulls out the clichéd “gut feeling” logic to fulfill his overall arc as a Hindi film protagonist.

This does not mean the narrative does not intrigue a forgiving audience. Devaiah, brilliant as ever, does everything to keep the film interesting.  He does so for a long time, but eventually fails to raise the material past its obvious flaws. One of the biggest being the character of Vivaan, that is painted with broad strokes and the most repetitive, rehearsed cop clichés. So there is a teenage girl that he shares an almost father-daughter relationship with, a girlfriend (Sagarika Ghatke) who exist simply to provide the narrative with one of the many twists and give the protagonist an emotional core.

Beyond him, there are few characters the film lets us invest in. There is just one obvious prime suspect, that you as a regular viewer of the genre expect to have the very arc he ends up having. There are, thankfully, no subplots or distracting visuals of a dragged romance, but the pace of the chase remains curiously slow for a thriller.

Footfairy is the kind of film that powers itself by its climax. It tries to tag the audience along, hoping that the end would redeem all its previous misgivings. But narratives – especially thrillers – cannot work that way. The climax cannot be the sole reason behind two hours of chase. It is the chase that gives purpose to the climax, not the other way round.

This is the trap where Footfairy falls, making it watchable, but never memorable. It is a decent attempt at a certain kind of murder mystery that has little presence in a culture obsessed with a complete arc, a satisfying, satiable end. But with the kind of atmosphere the film sets early in the narrative, and an intriguing title that finds little meaning in the larger context of the film, the film dissolves into an unmemorable viewing experience, despite a terrific Gulshan Devaiah.

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Sadak 2 Review

 

Sadak 2 marks the return of Mahesh Bhatt on the director’s chair again after a long break and given his appreciable filmography and the talent he brings on screen for this movie, you expect it to be a worthy watch. But the film, that is a sequel to the Sanjay Dutt-Pooja Bhatt-starrer Sadak, feels like it has been teleported into a future it does not belong to.

Sanjay Dutt reprises his role of Ravi, now grieving the loss of the woman who helped him out of his descending mental health in the previous film. The woman of his dreams is dead, and with that Ravi has lost all his will to live. Early in the movie, Ravi tries to hang himself by the ceiling. One cannot help but recall the recent demise of an actor, and the impact that narrative has had on the way the trailer of this film was received.

The only way Sadak 2 could have bounced back after the wide negativity against its trailer was if the film turned out to be a knockout winner. Sadly, what we find on screen is one of the tamest films in recent times with such a rich pool of talent on the screen (incidentally the only recent film that comes to mind as worse than this is Bhatt and Roy-starrer Kalank).

The story is too intrigued by its own love-affair with a kind of dramatic flair that is dated and undesired. There is a twist on every turn, but the emotions that the film wants to churn out of the audience are missing. There is a teary Sanjay Dutt, who does his best to give the narrative a gravity that the writing lacks. Alia Bhatt tries her best to fit into a role that is too simplistic and one-tone for a film where every second character is holding a secret up their sleeves.

After a point, it seems those involved with the film forgot that they needed to marry their obsession with twists with some sense of logic. But to expect even an ounce of logic from Sadak 2 is wrong. This is the kind of terrible film that disregards the intelligence of its audience on every turn (at one point, Aditya Roy Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt sing with the same voice in a song). It is laughable, frustrating and an unendingly agonizing watch that ends as miserably as it began.

Sadak 2 is the kind of movie where the lines of good and evil are distinctly carved. The good is often in the sunshine, wearing clothes of lighter shades, and the evil is indoor, in a darkened space, wearing black clothes. At its crux, its intention to take a dig at the corrupt nature of Godmen is a noble one. But it is better to have an able Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma do that in an inconsistent but effective PK. Someday, Alia Bhatt will return back to give us a film that supports her talent, but with memories of her fantastic screen presence in Gully Boy fading, one is left wondering if Mahesh Bhatt will ever make a better, more fitting film with his daughter. Until then, the ghastly memories of this torrid experience will persist.

 

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Mee Raqsam Review

 

In Mee Raqsam director Baba Azmi and producer Shabana Azmi intend to pay a tribute to their father, the great Urdu poet and lyricist Kaifi Azmi. The film is not the story of his life, but a story of a father who stands tall against religious extremism for the sake of his daughter’s happiness, often without realizing the magnitude of his actions. It captures the essence of Azmi – a sense of his ideologies and the political voice and weaves that voice into the narrative, to create a film that is soft, harmless, and for the most part likable.

The story follows Mariam (Aditi Subedi), a teenage girl who deals with the loss of her mother by pursuing her passion for dancing. Her father, Salim (Danish Husain) a tailor, enrolls her in a Bharatnatyam class, triggering a rupture in the social fabric of Mijwan, a small town in U.P., which was also Kaifi Azmi’s hometown. Fanatics from both sides start to accuse Salim of being ignorant and insensitive to his religion. To study Bharatnatyam, which is perceived as a Hindu dance form by the Islamic extremists, is an insult to Islam. With threats of social boycott looming hard, Salim’s love for his daughter is put to test.

At its core, the story of Mee Raqsam is a dramatic one. In places, the drama becomes a little obvious and almost staged, but largely Baba Azmi maintains a sense of restrain in his narrative. Despite a heavy presence of religious fanaticism, the story remains rooted in the relationship of the father and daughter, who fight hate, bias, and isolation together.

Mee Raqsam benefits heavily from the performances that the director gets out of his actor. Danish Husain as the loving, unnerving father is wonderful, especially in scenes where he stands as a pillar of courtesy and hospitality in the face of hate, isolation, and social and professional boycott. His eyes carry a blend of pain and determination. He values his religion, but not the men who have become self-designed voices of Allah; he loves his daughter, and realizes that the only right there is for him is to make his daughter happy. He is a man of simple values, but what makes him extraordinary is his belief in his values, despite the hate around him. As Mariyam, Aditi Subedi is innocent, soft, and palpable enough to come across as convincing. But it is Naseeruddin Shah in the role of a regressive patron of Islam who shines the most, despite a presence that is credited as a guest appearance. Shah, much like in his previous appearance in Bandish Bandits, does something with a simple narrative and elevates it briefly into something special simply by the gaze of his eyes. It is a privilege seeing him on screen, and despite a well-trimmed role, one wishes to see more of his rage, simply because it is him essaying this role.

Mee Raqsam is a delicate story of a father-daughter duo, that makes some pertinent arguments about an increasing division of art forms into religion, and the need for integration, to realize that Bharatnatyam is as much a part of the Indian culture as ghazals and Shayari. The film is an ode to people who stand against such divisive thinking, in the process paying a tribute to the man who rose from Mijwan and became a harsh critic of religious dogmatism, and an advocate of liberalism.

 

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Khuda Haafiz Review

 

Khuda Haafiz is a rare Vidyut Jamwal-starrer film where Jamwal has no action sequences till almost the end of the first hour. It is a film that tests the actor in Jamwal, forcing him to find an emotional core to unleash the action hero that he has made a habit of playing. The film, written and directed by Faruk Kabir, takes a long time to give Jamwal the base upon which he can showcase his talent as an action hero. This is both, a risky and a compromised creative call, that words sporadically, but eventually lets the narrative down.

The premise here is quite simple. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 recession, Sameer (Jamwal) marries Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) early in the film, only to find that with the recession, both of them have lost their life. In absence of an income, they take the help of a shady travel agent (Vipin Sharma), to travel to Noman, a fictional country somewhere in the Middle-East (in a weird animated moment, we are actually shown the geographical location of this non-existing country). Here, Nargis is kidnapped and Sameer is on a lookout for the love of his life with the help of a friendly taxi driver (Annu Kapoor), and government officers Faiz Abu Malik (Shiv Panditt) and Tamena Hamid (Aahana Kumra).

The talent on screen is quite good in Khuda Haafiz, despite a dodgy accent here-and-there. This helps in ensuring that the film is not an unwatchable affair, but the film is punctured by clichés that start to appear quite early in the narrative. For an action-thriller, the pace at which the film moves is questionably slow, and the figure of antagonist never fleshed out enough to become a frightening presence in the narrative.

At several points, the film seems to be edging towards making a political, social point, but it wastes every opportunity as a contrived plot-points. A story of a couple left jobless after the recession could have found an unforeseen resonance in the current economic climate, but the film is too busy working up towards the action set-pieces to really interrogate their plight. Similarly, the film could have shown the darker side of trafficking and its ghastly presence, but that too becomes a base upon which Jamwal could beat up a few men.

The female protagonist, Nargis, exists in the film only to look pretty and be scared and powerless, while the other female character, Tamena, is a wasted opportunity of exploring a woman who is more than a face in a male-centric culture. Khuda Haafiz is strictly about men, and that too, men with a vulnerable core.

This gives Jamwal a chance at showing a different side to his screen presence. Jamwal is earnest throughout the film, but the raw vulnerability that the director demands from him also leaves him empty in some crucial moments in the film. For a film that tries to find its roots in emotions, Khuda Haafiz is low on them, while in the process compromising the action that could have elevated this film in moments.

Khuda Haafiz is not a terrible movie. It is a film that works in little moments, but those are rare, and too little to harp on. The film suffers by sidelining its female characters and trying to redefine an actor who probably does not have the depth and gravity that one needs to pull off a role so deeply rooted in fiery melancholy. Jamwal is decent, but not good enough, and a sudden character shift from a curtailed law-abiding citizen to a rogue is so unsettling and unconvincing, that nothing – not even Jamwal’s ability to fight a traitor single-handedly in front of armed officer – could bring Khuda Haafiz to justice.

 

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Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl Review

 

A few days ago, Shakuntala Devi struggled with the problem of blending the personal and professional of the mathematician, inclining towards the former more than the latter. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a more balanced, mature film about a woman who tries to balance the personal with professional excellence.

However, the biggest merit of the film lies in its ability to go beyond the titular figure whose story it documents. The story is more about a gender’s historical exclusion from the world beyond the four walls of the home. It is a tale of a young woman who dared to dream and found her way through all attacks of institutionalized sexism to live her dream on a canvas where her dreams marry a patriotic accomplishment.

In one of the best scenes of the film Gunjan (Jhanvi Kapoor) is skeptical about her decision to join the Indian Air Force. She argues that her passion is to be a pilot, she is not a very patriotic person. There is a sense of self-disappointment in her voice. She has pictured patriotism as a vocal, vehement love for the idea pf a country. Her father, Anup Saxena (Pankaj Tripathi), gives a counter idea of patriotism, where the very idea of our love for our country is hinged on the proper functioning of the larger machinery of everyone doing their job passionately. They share a smile, and a moment of subtle counter-argument to the chest-thumping idea of patriotism being at the forefront of a military-based story is put in the forefront.

A few scenes later, we see Gunjan in the air force uniform, slowly growing a sense of patriotism, but never turning into someone who kisses the tricolor or yells a cathartic “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” in the climax where she triumphs over systematic sexism that has defined her journey, and the film, till that point.

Writer Nikhil Mehrotra and director Sharan Sharma use these moments smartly to emphasize that the story they are telling belongs to a woman and her passion, not the air force job that she happened to get, as part of her childhood dream of being a pilot. The narrative is inclined more towards the confrontations Gunjan has with sexism.

Here, the film nails the parts where Gunjan is forced to feel secluded and unwanted in a military culture that is structurally patriarchal in nature. From the absence of a ladies’ bathroom to sexist jokes being thrown around casually, the film catches the breath of casual sexism wonderfully. It is in these moments that the film is at its best, both narratively and in its performances.

Pankaj Tripathi alone gives this film a touching emotional core by his simple, soft portrayal of a loving father, reminiscent of his performance in the cheerfully light Bareily Ki Barfi. He is brilliant as Gunjan’s father, as is Angad Bedi as the sexist brother, who carries a misogynist idea of looking after his sister. Bedi infuses the role with love and care, realizing that he stands for all those nameless faces who find reasons to stamp their sexism over women they claim to love and look out for. Vineet Kumar Singh is utilized well here as the arrogant flight commander, who stands for systematic sexism at the workplace, capturing the brutality of a woman’s experience of exploring the uncharted ably.

With such exceptional actors surrounding the canvas of Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Jhanvi Kapoor is given the herculean task of staying on the same beat with these stalwarts as the titular figure of the movie. After her debut in Dhadak, Kapoor gives a patchy but decent performance here as Gunjan Saxena. She never catches you by your breath the way Alia Bhatt did in her fantastic portrayal of Veera in Highway, but she finds the heartbeat of her character well, especially in scenes where she emotes quietly in the face of blatant sexism. She still feels rough, and there are moments where she risks at ruining a well-written screenplay by the sheer absence of a coherent presentation of poignancy on her face, but she shines in the latter half of the film, getting increasingly better with each passing scene.

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl finds a good mix of family drama and Saxena’s personal ambition, and journey of turning her dreams into her reality. The journey she goes through to fulfill this dream, like the film itself, is hiccupped, but eventually a rewarding one. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a film that gets a lot of complexities of the real-life figure right. It is in the parts that feel strictly fictionalized that the film seems to go a little haywire, preventing it from going past a good, watchable affair.

 

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Pareeksha Review

 

If to be well-intentioned as a filmmaker was the primary criterion for a film to be good, then Prakash Jha’s directorial Pareeksha would have been a stellar work of art. But the truth is a little more complex than that. In his pursuit of telling a story with a larger social purpose, Jha has faltered to give a coherent, engaging cinematic experience in his latest offering, despite a commendable outing by Adil Hussain.

Jha returns to his concerns with the Indian education system again after the 2011 Aarakshan, this time speaking of the economically underprivileged. The larger arc of the film is quite simple. Bucchi (Adil Hussain) is a rickshaw puller in Ranchi, who wants to do everything to ensure his son Bulbul (Shubham Jha) gets a good shot at a life that is better than the one Bucchi has gained for himself and his family.

A private school becomes the guarantee for a better future, in Bucchi’s mind. A school far from his thin pockets. But Bucchi is determined, and in that determination he goes from white to shades of grey, justifying everything by the simple rationale of everything leading to a better life for his son.

The film at once wants to be a story of emotional turmoil, as well as a thinking guide for the audience to question the system that is unfairly biased towards those with big pockets, Pareeksha functions on a very bland base to work as both. The film is dated and distasteful. It employs clichés like the poor man standing in rains with his son, waiting for the big-school principal to come in her lavish car, or the desperate father trying to commit an immoral act, but still helping an old man up, leading up to him being caught of committing a crime.

Jha, who we are told is adapting the narrative from a real-life story, gets greedy in his pursuit of churning the most out of this story. With an amicable arc, that resembles in parts with the 1948 masterpiece Bicycle Thieves, with a social commentary on the education system peppered along the way, Jha had a potential winner at hand. Sadly, he suffocates his own ambitions by cushioning the story with relentless melodrama and manipulative emotions

There is nothing wrong with the two things, essentially. A story like this comes with the promise of an emotional chord. But the problem is when you start seeing how the filmmaker is trying to birth that emotion out of you. In Pareeksha, the tricks are too repetitive, regressive to make it work. After all these years, there has to be a better way to convey emotions. To spell out everything – every fear, intention, indecision, and injustice – becomes quickly repetitive and ragged as a storytelling device.

The first half of Pareeksha is choppy and half-baked, but a part of you stays invested because of an earnest Adil Hussain trying his best to create an emotional core to a story that forgets him in the second half like his struggle never mattered. It is here that Pareeksha commits its cardinal sin. The creative decision that single-handedly pulls away from all promises and hopes that you might have had with this one.

A high-ranking cop (Sanjay Suri) has a strange, erratic subplot involving him becoming a teacher for the underprivileged, reminiscent of another tired, treacherous subplot in Jha’s Aarakshan. It is here that the film completely crumbles under its own chaos. The story tries to become more about the economically impoverished students as a whole, and not just Bulbul, which the narrative refrains from soon, returning to Bulbul’s cause again before the end credits roll.

Veteran filmmakers like Prakash Jha are often defeated by their desire to hold on to a kind of filmmaking that belongs to a bygone era. Their drama is dated, and their themes, while still explorative, are morphed in a decade that matched with their prime. In that sense, Pareeksha is a reminder that a good film is not made by well-intentions and a big name on the director’s chair, but by remaining true to the times it is being made in and finding the grammatical accuracy best suited for the story being told.

 

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Bandish Bandits Review

 

There is a beautiful moment in Bandish Bandits when an ailing patriarch of the family recognizes the genius of his grandson’s voice by the trembling of a glass of water, as he experiences an escalating hearing impairment, marking music as a spiritual, aesthetic medium, and not just an audio experience. Sadly, moments like these stand in punctuated isolation in the muddled Prime series that is never too sure of what it wants to become.

Bandish Bandits, the new Amazon Prime show, promised to be a musical romance set against the picturesque backdrop of Rajasthan. Sadly, this is exactly where it disappoints. The love-story involving Radhe (Ritwik Bhowmik), heir of a traditionalist family of singers, rooted in the classical mould, and Tamanna (Shreya Chaudhry), a YouTube sensation who stands for the more westernized, tech-y music, is the weakest link in the narrative.

Peppered with dry clichés, a clumsy episode of role-playing and a subplot involving a Krrish-like mask, the love-story between Radhe and Tamanna is repetitive, and eventually half-baked. This is sad because of the early interactions between the two, which promise some spark. Despite being designed and dialogued with the starkest clichés that define a “sanskaari” boy and a modern, opinionated girl, these characters nonetheless seem to share a sweet juxtaposition that our mind is programmed to see fall in love over a series of (hopefully) endearing confrontations.

This is where the love-story takes its first hit. The bond that Radhe and Tamanna share feels constructed, not organic. There are moments here that feel designed and deliberate, not a matter of destiny. Further, the conflict of different musical styles (which could have grown into an ideological conflict in a better narrative), seems to vanish, making this a love story that is neither passionate nor palpable enough to care for.

Thankfully, there is more to Bandish Bandits than what it promised, and it is in the domestic domain that it finds its best moments. Characters and conflicts that should have been the sole presence in the narrative are voiced in the silenced chaos of the Rathore clan, before being inevitably halted by scenes of a scruffy love-story, breaking the tension that is never given a chance to reach its full potential.

To get through Bandish Bandits, one needs to look at it chiefly as a family drama, with the love-story only giving an added color to the narrative. This side of the narrative is led by the patriarch of the family, Pandit Radhe Mohan Rathore (Naseeruddin Shah), who lends the household a curfew-like existence, with the only sound that can exist belonging to that of classical singing. This side of the show has some wonderful performances by the likes of Atul Kulkarni, Rajesh Tailing, and a subtly wonderful Sheeba Chaddha.

Here the show seems to have a structure, a purpose, both things that are missing in the love-story. The competition of Sangeet Samrat, placed against an ailing old, arrogant man’s obsession with his legacy, and a lonely, deprived man fighting for his rights, paves way for a fascinating final episode, the journey to which is a turbulent, inconsistent one.

The biggest winner in Bandish Bandits is its music. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy give a memorable, mouth-watering soundtrack here that may not always be used ably in the show, but finds a fitting crescendo in the final act when music looms large over the narrative, carpeting under it all the conflicts that preceded it. The classical songs are particularly wonderful, giving the show a depth that its writing does not. The music often makes up for the irregular narrative, that is too confused about where it wants to lead the story.

Bandish Bandits is a poor execution of a cross-genre story. It wants to be at once a love story, a family drama, a coming-of-age story, and a commentary on different philosophies of music. Ultimately, it becomes a middling hotchpotch of ideas and situations, never dedicated to one string for long enough to make it work.

The series could have been a wonderful exploration of the juxtaposing musical philosophies, both rooted together and yet driven away from one another. It could have been a memorable love-story set against a fantastic album. It could have been a dedicated family drama that explored the complexities of relationships entangled with music and a misogynistic quest to be the man on the pinnacle of the mountain of melody. But all it is, eventually, is a show that shows sporadic promise, but falters in its inability to find a consistent tone, despite some stellar performances and a fantastic soundtrack.

 

Now Streaming on Amazon Prime

Lootcase Review

 

A film like Lootcase comes with economized expectations, and it is important to understand and interrogate the film within those parameters. It is not an ambitious biopic or an original thriller, but a film of limited means and a depleted idea starring some wonderful actors, all in top form, making this exactly what it promised to be – a mad dark comedy that will make you chuckle regularly.

The film largely revolves around a brazen middle-class man Nandan Kumar (Kunal Kemmu) and his adventures with a red suitcase full of cash. This simple, dated premise becomes the core from where writer Kapil Sawant and director Rajesh Krishnan churn out a breezy film, peppered with some quietly terrific performances and real, reverberating dialogues that belong to the world of the film, while also giving it a comic mould that makes for an enjoyable watch.

The red suitcase brings together an array of colourful, corrupt characters together. From the local criminal Bala (a brilliant Vijay Raaz) to Omar (Sumit Nijhawan), MLA Patil (Gajraj Rao), and Inspector Kolte (Ranvir Shorey), who is under the orders of Patil in search of the lost suitcase, which finds a home in the small flat of Nandan, without the knowledge of his wife Lata (Rasika Duggal).

Lootcase could have been an easy misfire if not for its actors. Kemmu is brilliant as the helpless, greedy middle-class man. He holds the film together in the company of some of the best talents of the industry. Vijay Raaz as the Nat Geo-obsessed mafia is hilarious in his own, quiet, sombre way, while Gajraj Rao shines in a role that uses his delicate, honest smile to the fullest.

Like most films belonging to this genre, Lootcase works in sequences, not often as a whole package. Some moments are bound to work a little less than others, but the comedy remains consistently sharp and critiquing. The film dangles a wry eye on the corruption, extortion and the middle-class greed for a wealthier life, without ever pausing to point at the subtext of these images.

In these characters, the writer of the film paints a picture of India, with different sides of its personality colliding with each other. There is a fear that is as farcical as the very premise of the film. It wants us to laugh, but also feel for the middle-class couple, the goon who almost sounds like a producer at Nat Geo sometimes, and of course, the Inspector, who is both, part of the system as well as the servant of his own greed.

Lootcase is a promise well delivered. The characters are rarely etched beyond their comical traits and one-liners, but the film never wanted to be anything more. It is a film that does not have the power to be remembered for long or find a long home in the hearts of the audience, but it is a comforting watch while it lasts, and in these times of uncertainties, watching some exceptionally talented actors having fun on screen is not a bad thing to watch.

 

Streaming on Disney+Hotstar

Raat Akeli Hai Review

 

At the heart of the murder mystery in the wonderfully made Raat Akeli Hai is a dysfunctional family that teases us into believing that the normal is anything that can be shrouded from the eyes of the law. It is a reminder that truth is a raw fruit, fragranced by the careful carpeting of a layer of a lie, to maintain the normalcy – support the status quo.

Eventually, it all comes down to that. Maintaining the status quo. In that sense, Inspector Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddique) plays an anarchist in uniform in this film directed by debutant Honey Trehan. He is the only man who really cares for the truth in a narrative laced with deceit, deception, and hidden secrets, all creating a large, intrinsic case for a classic whodunit, which largely returns with wonderful results.

The set-up is quite simple. A family’s patriarch is killed on the night of his second marriage. There are no obvious suspects and no witnesses. It is a Christie-esque mystery that challenges the viewers at every step. The most obvious suspects include Radha (Radhika Apte) and Vikram (Nishant Dahiya), both coming with their own set of secrets.

But to truly appreciate the filmmaking of Raat Akeli Hai, one needs to look beyond the 149-minute long quest to find the killer. Like most good thrillers, the identity of the killer almost loses significance after a point here. What matters is how this one act of killing someone – an act of assertive rebellion in the midst of conformity – opens wounds of a family that becomes a gruesome reminder of the volatile reality that a joint family can be.

Writer Smita Singh and director Honey Trehan use this to take a sharp, subtle dig at the way the world, the system works. The death of the old patriarch is the end of a certain way of life. An unapologetic, unruffled patriarch who is convinced that he has all the cards in his favour. After all, in a conformist patriarchal setup, there is little that he has to fear. Maybe, that is various family members reiterate the absence of love in the hearts of others for him. He was an unloved man, too arrogant to look past himself.

Jatil and Radha, then, stand as the hiccups in a world that is ironed out to behave a certain way. Jatil becomes obsessed with his search for truth, eventually beyond his professional duties, and Radha is the convenient scapegoat that seems to have escaped, somehow. There is nothing more dangerous than a scapegoat on the loose, aware of its dawning end. The two become the inconsistency that gives truth a shot at being voiced.  A truth that exists right within the family; breathing in silence, carefully chiseling past the mist of lies to settle into a grave of silence.

Raat Akeli Hai is a decent enough whodunit when looked at as simply that, but add to that its social, thematic depth and the story truly finds its grip. It makes a statement beyond the murder, the killer, and the process of Jatil solving the mystery. If Shoojit Sircar’s Gulabo Sitabo explored the intrinsic greed that holds the family together, Raat Akeli Hai explores the acceptance and deadened survival of crime and corruption for the sole purpose of upholding the sanctity of a family that has lost itself in the process of holding itself on a pedestal.

Nawazzudin Siddique delivers a faultless performance as the Inspector, both fierce and vulnerable in the face of becoming an anarchist in his search for truth, made to confront his past in the now of the case, and battle between truth and duty, having to choose one over the other. Radhika Apte has lesser screen time comparatively but she gives the film some of the best moments. As Radha, she is both a vulnerable victim as well as a fierce fighter, transitioning from one to the other seamlessly. However, the real treat comes from the supporting cast here, all delivering powerful performances, ensuring that the onus is not on Siddique and Apte, alone. Shivani Raghuvanshi, Shweta Tripathi, and Nishant Dahiya are especially wonderful in their little, but significant parts, thickening the chaos on screen.

Raat Akeli Hai is a slow-burning film that takes its time to grow into a quintessential whodunit. It is as much about the atmosphere it is set in as it is about the murder at hand. Everything lurks around as a fearful possibility, no one escaping the chasm of suspicion. It is a film that lives on beyond its moment of reveal, forcing us to see around at the world, briefly making us wonder if the truth behind the farcical smiles of people around us carries a similar, sinister arc.

 

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