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Release
date:
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April 10, 2020
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Director:
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Ranjan Chandel
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Cast:
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Aditya Rawal,
Shalini Pandey, Vijay Varma, Shivam
Mishra, Jatin Sarna, Sana Amin Sheikh, Kokab Fareed, Priyank Tiwari
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Language:
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Hindi
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A college-going ruffian
in Allahabad operates on a short fuse. He is loyal to his friends, takes on
those who cross swords with them, longs to meet the city’s
crime-kingpin-cum-political-influencer and falls for a pretty stranger. Nasir
Jamaal’s misdemeanours lead to a more grievous act when circumstances are
manipulated by an individual who is well-acquainted with the young man’s
combustible nature.
Director Ranjan
Chandel’s Bamfaad
(Explosion/Explosive) stays with Nasir’s battle for survival when life spirals
out of control, beyond anything his bravado and a fist fight can fix.
Chandel has
co-written this story, screenplay and dialogues with Hanzalah Shahid. The film,
which is streaming on Zee5 from today, has already drawn some attention because
it is presented by Anurag Kashyap (who Chandel earlier assisted), serves as a
debut platform for the son of veteran actors Swaroop Sampat and Paresh Rawal
(Aditya Rawal plays Nasir) and is the first Hindi film starring Shalini Pandey
who made her big-screen debut in the nationally debated Telugu hit Arjun Reddy (2017).
True to its title, Bamfaad has a fiery start. The striking
introduction melds realism, humour and an earthy song. You know it has emerged
from the Anurag Kashyap School of Filmmaking when, in the opening minutes in
the background, singer Vishal Mishra belts out that exuberant, mischievously
worded title track (music: Mishra himself, lyrics: Raj Shekhar). You know the
film has been designed as a showcase for Rawal Junior when, during the course
of that number, the screen is given over entirely to his lithe frame moving
towards the camera as he emerges from a darkened space into the light, a device
Bollywood uses only when it sees an actor as larger-than-life-hero material.
Whether Rawal will
live up to that expectation is a question for crystal-ball gazers. What can be
said for sure is that in Bamfaad he
reveals himself to be a natural actor with solid potential. His physique is
also a pleasant change from the steady stream of star sons flowing out of
Bollywood in the past decade, whose bulging muscles and soulless yet perfect
dancing have borne such a strong resemblance to each other that they have come
across as clones assembled in the same lab. Rawal is no clone. No way.
The women in Bamfaad’s storyline are secondary
players, and Pandey’s Neelam is no different. She is efficient in the role of a
quietly assertive woman, but lacks a spark.
The stand-out
performers in the cast are Vijay
Varma playing a criminal named Jigar Fareedi, and Jatin Sarna as Nasir’s
friend.
The first half of Bamfaad is pacey and interesting.
Prashant Pillai’s background score is intelligently utilised and the songs are
slipped smoothly into the narrative. The big twist in Nasir’s journey is deftly
edited and directed, and leaves in its wake considerable suspense over what
will happen next.
Sadly, the second
half of Bamfaad does not live up to
the promise of the pre-interval portion. After that mid-point drama, the
writing wears thin. There are two nice turns, both involving policemen, but
nothing so exciting as to make the film stand out from the other crime sagas
that have populated the Hindi filmverse for two decades now.
Maybe things would
have been different if we had never seen Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda (1989), Ram Gopal Varma’s
pathbreaking Satya (1998) and Company (2002), or the best of Kashyap
and others that came next. Maybe too things would have been different if the past two
decades had not brought with them so many memorable visits to small towns and
small-town romances in Uttar Pradesh. Anyone
following in those footsteps needs to conjure up something truly unusual,
inventive and extraordinary to pass muster. Bamfaad
works up to a point, but not further.
The writing of the
characters’ motivations and their relationships requires more depth, the bows
to Allahabad and its culture are sparse, and post-interval it feels as if the
director mistook limited energy for a naturalistic storytelling style.
Still, Hanzalah
Shahid and Ranjan Chandel are talents to watch out for. For one, in this era of
stereotype-ridden, Islamophobic Bollywood rants like Padmaavat, Kesari, Kalank and Tanhaji, it is nice to see a film in which the protagonist is a
Muslim, but is not given any stereotypical markers of the religion, and members
of the community are treated as regular humans: some good, some not, some evil,
some not.
This is not to
suggest that Bamfaad avoids a
political comment on the present real-life context in which it has been
released. The film does reference the danger looming over Hindu-Muslim
equations in today’s India, although that is not a primary theme.
Besides, how can
one not make note of artists who can conceptualise a scene in which a love-lorn
youth gazing at the object of his affection tells her that pimples look good on
her face? He does not say “even pimples”, he simply says “pimples”. Oh the
sweet innocence of those words! Because of course on her they are an adornment,
not a skin eruption – “that dress looks good on you”, “the new hairstyle looks
good on you”, “pimples look good on you”.
Bamfaad is not quite the explosion it was meant to be,
but it has its merits and its moments and is an engaging watch.
Rating (out
of 5 stars): 2.5
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Running time:
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102 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: Zee5
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