Film: Badlapur
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi, Radhika Apte, Yami Gautam, Divya Dutta, Kumud Mishra, Vinay Pathak
Early on in Badlapur , a little after one of the best executed opening scenes in Indian cinema — a bank robbery gone wrong in one single take — we see a young advertising executive Raghu (Varun Dhawan) present a new ad to his team.
It’s a clever, funny push-up bra commercial and someone in the team asks: “Where did you steal it from?” He smoothly says: “Original hai” . And right away, we know Raghu is a liar.
It’s a fascinating contrast to the opening scene that introduces us to the villain Liak (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) trying to get away after robbing a bank. There’s no denying that evil lurks in us all.
And that’s what makes film noir instantly appealing and wickedly unpredictable. There are at least a dozen characters in this terrific ensemble that will stay with you. Sriram Raghavan’s latest is a fantastic return to form and the kind of cinema he revels in making: character-driven narratives with funny, dark, explosive situations.
Badlapur is not just a revenge film. The town is a metaphor for the state of mindlessness. What can solitary confinement and alienationdo to an individual? Badlapur is an exploration of human behaviour, the lengths people go to for love. And revenge. As the film explores the genre, it also turns around to question it.
The fun is in how Sriram Raghavan pulls it off with his brand of humour… when you least expect it, even in the gravest of situations.
Varun Dhawan, playing a character much older than his real age, arrives as the deadliest onscreen anti-hero since Shah Rukh Khan threw Shilpa Shetty off the terrace in Baazigar . Nawaz is the soul of Badlapur only because Varun plays his character as a complete contrast to Nawaz — soulless, intense, brooding, creepy.
It is a film where men believe in the conquest of women to show their superiority over each other and where women put sex in context. Huma Qureshi and Radhika Apte take on boldly uninhibited roles, while Divya Dutta and Yami Gautam lend this dark film some amount of light and goodness. The film might not land smoothly but it is an effort that deserves applause. Or as the believers say, Jai Sri Ram.
Sudhish Kamath
