An opening disclaimer establishes the film’s connect (as well as the disconnect) with the infamous serial killer of the 60s in Mumbai: Raman Raghav, who had left a trail of 41-odd murders behind him. “This film is not about him,” the disclaimer states. Indeed, the film is about a contemporary copycat killer. But then it is not just about the new age Ramanna either.
Crime vs law
Whodunnit? Whydunnit? Howdunnit? RR 2.0 is actually neither of the above. Yes there are many murders that keep you riveted, but they are not an end in themselves. They are more a contrivance, as is the cat-and-mouse game between the killer Ramanna (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and the cop Raghuvendra Singh Ubbi (Vicky Kaushal).
The slayings and slaughters are mere pit-stops in the journey of these two characters and their unfolding relationship with each other. The killings (right from the one at the start, to those in the end) are devices through which director Anurag Kashyap explores the crime vs law binary. He brings the two together, coalesces and fuses them. Is there much that separates the two? Aren’t they reflections of each other?
The film is a long chase in which each is actually running after his own shadow. It is, as if Kashyap deliberately splits an immoral, unlawful mind into two and the film then becomes a voyage to a metaphoric completion. As if on cue Ramanna says of Raghav: “ Apni mukti aurat mein dhoondh raha hai (He is looking for his own redemption in a woman).” Implying quite kinkily that it is he: who is actually his salvation.
The pivot of the film is the portrait of the serial killer. The creature of Mumbai mythology and folklore is brought alive with added shades of the dark and the menacing in this brand new avatar. Glowing cat eyes, a scar running down his forehead, at times wearing his own sister’s earrings, humming “ aadmi musafir hai ” and moving around with an iron car-jack in hand, scouting furtively for victims, hiding in slush and rising up nonchalantly from it plastered with muck: Siddiqui is brilliantly frantic and frenzied as the cold-hearted, demented, voyeuristic pervert. Like the best of killers, his depravity is built on his individual philosophy: that he has a wireless access to God, he is the messenger of Yamraj who is telling him to pick people up and kill them.
Brutal killings
For him killing in the name of nation or religion, is just not as evolved as killing purely for the heck of killing: which is what he practises. Siddiqui packs in such brute force in his lean frame and mean presence that everyone else gets automatically shoved to the periphery. Sitting on his knees, looking up at the cop in the balcony: with one unwavering look he sends a chill down the spine. But, despite Siddiqui’s overpowering presence Kaushal stands in good stead as a reckless, trigger-happy, drug-addled cop keeling dangerously close to Ramanna’s side of darkness.
They share much in common. Both have emerged from squalid surroundings; belong to worlds that are rotten and foul. Be it the filthy slums or a decaying middle-class family. So a passing reference to Vasanthabalan’s Angadi Theru seems quite appropriate in the scheme of the film. Both Ramanna and Raghav are creatures bred and brought up in patriarchy and yet are, victims of it (Raghav’s uneasy but submissive equation with his dad, for instance) perpetuating its deep misogyny. No wonder women, however strong-willed, get the worst end of the stick, be it Ramanna’s victims or Raghav’s girls.
Some sequences stand out. Ramanna holding his sister’s family hostage brings out his sick mind in the queasiest way possible. A massacre followed by a feast of some chicken curry and, to top it all, that dynamite of a song: ‘ Behooda ’. Most satisfying! Or, that unnervingly funny killing in slums even as an old lady is too busy collecting the potatoes fallen from her bag. The killings and bloodshed might be kept off screen but the gore and gruesomeness reach out.
The black humour adds to the horror. For instance, the long scene at the beginning where Ramanna confesses to his crimes: only to be let off by the police. Owning up becomes his ticket to freedom, and to more murders than the nine already committed.
Taut thriller
More than the story itself, it is the quirky telling that is the key. Structured around eight chapters, vividly shot in the slums, pulsating with raucous music, Raman Raghav 2.0 is a taut thriller, full of energy and brimming over with tension. It doesn’t flag even once and holds the viewer tightly in its grip.
Such is the dizzying momentum and pace, that you even stop caring about some missing pieces of the jigsaw that might have been niggling at you. Clear-cut, uncomplicated Raman Raghav 2.0 takes you on an entertainment high.
Raman Raghav 2.0
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Sobhita Dhulipala, Amruta Subhash
Runtime: 141 mins
