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Release
date:
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March 8,
2019
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Director:
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Sujoy Ghosh
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Cast:
Language:
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Taapsee Pannu,
Amitabh Bachchan, Tony Luke Kocherry, Amrita Singh, Tanvir Ghani, Manav
Kaul
Hindi
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Two people are
found by the police in a hotel room in the European countryside. One of them, a
photographer called Arjun Joseph (Tony Luke Kocherry, credited here as Tony
Luke), is lying dead, while the other, the renowned businessperson Naina Sethi
(Taapsee Pannu) is injured. The woman claims that there was an unidentified
third party within those four walls with them, although no one was seen leaving
and all possible exits were in any case secured from inside.
Her guilt as a
murderer is therefore assumed, but Ms Sethi will have none of that. She hires
an expensive lawyer called Badal Gupta whose expertise in ‘preparing’ witnesses
is legendary in legal circles since he has not lost a single case in a 40 year
career. His mantra: “Kanoon wahi sach
maanta hai jo saabith kiya ja sakta hai.” (The law believes to be the truth
that which can be proved.) Badla
begins with this tall, bearded man (Amitabh Bachchan) arriving for a meeting
with Sethi to hear her account of events. The narrative unfolds in a series of
flashbacks as she tells him what transpired between her and Joseph.
Writer-director
Sujoy Ghosh’s Badla (Revenge) is the
Hindi remake of the Spanish crime thriller Contratiempo
a.k.a. The Invisible Guest, written
and directed by Oriol Paulo, and currently streaming on Netflix. The
adapted screenplay – replete with references to the Mahabharat – has been attributed to Ghosh while Paulo has been duly
acknowledged as the writer of the original story in the Hindi film’s credits.
Contratiempo and Badla
belong to the sub-genre of thrillers where the viewer hears several versions of
the truth narrated by various people, some who have credibility because they
were present at the site and some who may not necessarily have been there. If
you are listening and watching carefully enough, you may spot at least two
gaping loopholes much before the big reveal. This is a fault of the written
material by Paulo,
not Ghosh’s direction or the acting. For instance, the story is pivoted on the extreme and
uncharacteristic inefficiency of one of the individuals involved, and calls for
considerable suspension of disbelief from anyone who notices this flaw.
Ghosh’s direction
is, in fact, efficient as is Monisha R. Baldawa’s editing while they aim at
having us guess who is to be believed and who not. Badla’s DoP is Avik Mukhopadhayay whose work on Shoojit Sircar’s October last year was sheer genius. Here
he gives us elegant shots of Scotland’s natural beauty along with cleverly
chosen frames featuring the various players in this psychological cat and mouse
game between the storyteller and the audience.
The end result is a
satisfying whodunit which, while certainly not brilliant, is suspenseful enough
and occasionally eerie enough, especially when outdoors, to be entertaining
while it lasts.
Pannu, like the
film, is effective but not great. So is Bachchan.
The handsome model
turned Malayalam film actor Tony Luke (Oozham,
Sakhavu) makes his Hindi debut with Badla, and delivers the most impressive
performance of the lead trio. As is expected in such films, with each retelling
of the goings-on between Sethi and Joseph their characters change, sometimes
marginally, sometimes dramatically. This good-looking young star lends subtlety
even to the dramatic transformation in Joseph in one of the versions. I also
love the fact that he does not camouflage his Malayalam accent when he speaks
Hindi here – an interesting choice by the actor and his director.
Amrita Singh has a
crucial role in the film. Playing a distraught mother, she gives her character
a convincing emotional graph as demanded by the screenplay without once
devolving into Bollywood’s stereotypical over-wrought Maaaaaa.
Sujoy Ghosh is a
leading light among thriller makers in Bollywood. His Kahaani (2012) starring Vidya Balan set new standards for the
industry in this area. The pressure to live up to expectations raised by that
film did show in the writing of the climax for Kahaani 2 (2016), but he reminded us of his unmistakable talent for
mystery with director Ribhu Dasgupta’s unfortunately underrated Te3n (2016) starring Balan, Bachchan and
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, which he produced. Maybe some day he will replicate the
brilliance of Kahaani, but today what
he has given us is Badla: if you are
not in too demanding a mood, this is an enjoyable film.
Rating (out
of five stars): **3/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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120 minutes
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This review has also
been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy:
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