In a chilling frame right before the movie breaks for interval, the hunter has his prey inside a glass elevator. And what then? Nothing, except for a rarely seen subtlety in the body language of two performers (Varun Dhawan and Vinay Pathak), who needed no words as crutches to effect intensity and hold the game together.
And celluloid rules ‘tweak’ way once again for director Sriram Raghavan in the fiercely scripted and narrated ‘Badlapur’. In more ways than one, the story is about the psyche of the affected, than plotting revenge for a crime that turned fifteen years old. Raghu (Varun Dhawan) loses his wife Misha (Yami Gautam) and son Robin in a freak mishap, where in a moment of heated frenzy, two bank burglars—Laiq (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Harman (Vinay Pathak)—kill them. And Laiq lets himself be caught, letting Harman escape with the money.
So, after some initial stripping of conscience, we’re made to plant our gaze on Laiq, the efficacious liar falling short by a few brilliant ideas on jailbreak. Laiq is not your regular killer from the league of uncouth murderers. The motive being money, he doesn’t give away the details of the robbery, nor names his ally.
What precisely sets the momentum spinning is the fine lines drawn out for each character; although you set out with Raghu on the most traversed path in cinema—of revenge, and causing other agonies to one’s enemies—what you encounter is over a dozen shades of grey on the way.
Raghu is the victim, so to speak. And until now, there has been a way victims of such grave mishaps have arranged their emotions on celluloid; their frustration is rarely shown spreading to the tip of their manhood, since they’re the guardians of all things righteous. But nay, not in here, where there are no guardians, only mere mortals. So when Raghu approaches Jhimli (Huma Qureshi), a known prostitute for whom Liaq has a sweet tooth, his method to menace is not of the usual.
The entry of Shobha (Divya Dutta) as the NGO official seeking mercy for Liaq seems like the script tending ever so lightly towards Susan Sarandon in ‘Dead Man Walking’, but it was just the moment! This movie wasn’t anywhere close to taking that route. And the story begins here after fifteen years of the crime.
The narrative is organised down to its finer details, right from the high-voltage opening scene.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the catch of the narrative, with his demeanour charging some serious rethinking on the image of the anti-hero. He effortlessly and unflinchingly shows off every shade of his character.
Varun Dhawan has essayed a character that gets written once in a blue moon, and has carried it off to a great length. Huma Qureshi, fabulous in her versions (before and after the 15 years), brings more strength, exposing the weak and their weaknesses in the story.
A mature Vinay Pathak and a lovely and emotive Radhika Apte fit the bill. Special mentions to Ashwini Kalsekhar for her fantastic cameo as the detective, and Govind Mishra for playing a shrewd police officer.
Each character is drawn up meticulously with smart extensions attached to them, but none is smarter than the director, whose vision of them has scooped out a sensational drama. For mainstream cinema and its stereotypes, 'Badlapur' is an effective antidote. And if I may, it’s that snort of brilliance that sparks up the otherwise unprovoked stimulants.
Rating: 3.75/5