Movie review 'Badlapur': A riveting drama

In a seminal moment in Badlapur, the ‘baddie,’ a bank thief and murderer, played without a smattering of inhibition by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, turns to the ‘hero,’ the victim who reels from the loss of his wife and child, performed with maturity by young hero Varun Dhawan, to say: “I lost my head and killed them in a fit of rage. But look at you, you kill stone cold.”

We could see the moment coming, when the avenger becomes the villain, and the avenged tries to rise above the mundane. But the way Badlapur transcends mind space, plays with your guts and instinct, and becomes an intense, unapologetic psychological drama with only shades of grey, is absolutely riveting.

The film urges you not to miss the beginning. And you shouldn’t. It is not for what really transpires in those first five minutes but in how Nawazuddin Siddiqui manipulates you with his act, and takes the film to a new high.

The bank robbery and the murders come with no extra baggage; they are kept matter of fact. So are most of what happens, as Raghu (Varun) pursues Liak (Nawazuddin), who is doing his time in jail, without having spilled the details about his accomplice.

Raghu’s character sketch is as muddled as it could be. With nothing to lose or gain, other than his share of revenge, there are no moral borders for him, and that is a revelation in Bollywood. Here is a hero, who is unapologetic about his basic instincts.

Badlapur is not the edge-of-the-seat thriller and the story takes its time to arrive at its conclusion. And that is not where you have the hero blow the smoking gun, and gaze ahead with the satisfaction of revenge. Here, everyone becomes a loser and the very act of revenge loses its sharpness.

That, in fact, is the triumph of Badlapur. It goes into an area where most Bollywood films end, and takes the narrative from there further. What happens to people who are victims of others’ brutalities? What about the culprits? Do they revel in their crime? Do they turn a new leaf? And what if neither happens and nature just takes its own course, pushing everyone into an abyss from where there is no escape?

Everyone in Badlapur, is a victim; Jhumli (Huma Qureshi), the love of Liak’s life for whom he attempts the bank robbery; Koko (Radhika Apte), the wife of Harman (Vinay Gupta), Liak’s accomplice; Harman himself; Shobha (Divya Dutta), a social worker who pleads to Raghu for Liak’s release after 15 years in prison; Liak’s mother (Pratima Kazmi); and of course, Raghu’s wife (Yami Gautam). The film balances even the gender challenges in a revenge saga with every character having a clearly carved presence.

Badlapur is at some levels an extension of director Sriram Raghavan’s fascination for the broody secrets and the evils that lurk behind men.

Slickly cut (never dwelling on back stories for long) and fantastically shot by Anil Mehta, the film doesn’t become a classic simply because the intense brutality (not in terms of gore) and the everyday humour just become too twisted.

Not an easy watch, Badlapur disturbs you without taking sides. But in telling everything, and in fact, completing all jigsaws, there is nothing really to take away from it either. All we can do is just say, life is like that, and move on.