REVIEW 605: PARMANU – THE STORY OF POKHRAN

Release date:	May 25, 2018
Director:	Abhishek Sharma
Cast: Language:	John Abraham, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Anuja Sathe Hindi

1995: An earnest young bureaucrat’s proposal to make India a nuclear state is mucked up in execution by a minister anxious for personal glory.

 

When we meet Ashwath Raina (John Abraham) again three years later, he is still disillusioned and bitter about his suspension from his job for a politician’s mistakes. Raina has been leading a quiet existence, taking private tuitions at home for IAS aspirants while his astrophysicist wife Sushma pulls most of the weight for the family that also includes their nine-year-old son Prahlad.

 

When life gives him a second chance through the medium of Himanshu Shukla (Boman Irani), principal secretary to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Raina first hesitates but then takes the challenge head on, becoming the head of an ultra-covert team that goes on to conduct nuclear test explosions in May 1998 in Pokhran, Rajasthan.

 

Raina is fictional. The Pokhran operation, as newspaper archives attest, is not. Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran recounts the events of that crucial episode in contemporary Indian history.

 

This is a tricky subject in this age of high-decibel, aggressive nationalism, and could have gone unbearably overboard in the hands of a smarmy director trying to ingratiate himself with the present right-wing government, especially considering that India’s current ruling party also headed the regime under which the Pokhran tests were conducted in 1998. Director Abhishek Sharma, best known for Tere Bin Laden, seems to be aiming at least for a balanced tone. Instead of getting his characters to spout hosannas to any particular political party, he leaves them to do their work while the then PM’s stances and the international response to the tests are conveyed purely through news video footage from back then of the real-life players involved: Vajpayee, US President Bill Clinton, Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif and his predecessor Benazir Bhutto. Viewers are thus largely left to interpret the proceedings as we wish.

 

Except for the slimy minister who wronged Raina, Sharma also steers clear of maligning Vajpayee’s Opposition, keeping them absent from the picture. Pakistan (a favourite whipping boy of Bollywood) and the rest of the international community are not lazily demonised either. US Intelligence officials do end up looking stupid in the film, but what the heck, American commercial cinema trivialises the rest of the world all the time, so a similar lack of nuance in the portrayal of the US establishment in a commercial Indian film is worthy of a chuckle and some forgiveness. So is the somewhat delusional description of India’s post-Pokhran might in the closing text on screen. The clincher in favour of Parmanu is that though Sharma gives in to the temptation to speechify here and there about commitment to the country, the point is not stretched and the film does not descend into maudlin deshbhakti.

 

The result is a reasonably effective thriller as Raina & Co race against time, the watchful eye of US satellites and the fragility of Vajpayee’s coalition government to conduct the explosions that made international news in 1998. True, the glaring amateurishness of a couple of their moves on this most secret of missions is laughable. I mean, c’mon, in an area packed with spies, six undercover operatives take on the aliases Yudhishthir, Arjun, Bheem, Nakul, Sahdev and Krishna – can you be more obvious than that? But pace compensates for these missteps which are, in any case, not the norm with this bright, hardworking lot. The writers of Parmanu – Saiwyn Quadras, Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh and Sharma himself – also need to be commended for making the conversations about the processes involved in their work sound comprehensible yet believably intelligent to the average, inexpert viewer.

 

What could have elevated this film to another level altogether, of course, would have been at least an allusion to the perils of military aggression irrespective of the perpetrator, rather than a celebration of weaponisation. Perhaps not wanting to make his film cerebral in any way, Sharma avoids any such discussion. Fair enough. If he had stuck to a clinical account of the work done by Raina’s team (in the style of the recent Bollywood release Raid starring Ajay Devgn), Parmanu could have still risen above being merely passably entertaining. It does not because of a needless string of songs jammed into the narrative. And then there is the matter of John Abraham’s performance.

 

Abraham’s charm in films all these years has come from his nice-guy vibe combined with incredible sex appeal. What he gives us in Parmanu is pared-down glamour, which is well-suited to this role, and a remarkable job on Raina’s look including what appears to be considerable weight loss and a toning down of visible muscle bulk. For a hero whose shirtless scenes and unbelievably hot body have been his USPs so far, no doubt these are brave choices to make, but his expressionlessness from start to finish costs Parmanu dear. Abraham’s nice-guy vibe is still very much in evidence here, but it is just not enough. 

 

The rest of the cast are all good with whatever little they are given to do. Anuja Sathe is both convincing and likeable as Ashwath Raina’s neglected spouse. Diana Penty, who was luminous in Cocktail in 2012 and funny in Happy Bhag Jayegi, deserves a larger role, but at least she is not treated as a sexy female sidekick to a charismatic leading man as is the norm with similar Hollywood and Bollywood films. Besides, there is a small thrill to be derived from the presence in the story of a woman official from India’s IB who does not let it pass that the hero expected a person in her position to be a man. Coming as this does in a film in which the same hero’s wife is an astrophysicist, and the writing team does not overtly pat themselves on the back for envisioning a woman in such a profession (unlike most of their Bollywood colleagues for whom feminism is a trend to be profited from, rather than genuine conviction), it is hard to understand why they did not give the rest of their script the same unobtrusive depth. What might have been can be a long discussion. What is is the point here: Parmanu, with all its faults, is moderately entertaining fare.    

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	129 minutes 32 seconds

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/parmanu-the-story-of-pokhran-movie-review-john-abraham-thriller-is-reasonably-effective-passably-entertaining-4482333.html

Visuals courtesy: (1) https://www.facebook.com/ParmanuTheMovie/

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmanu:_The_Story_of_Pokhran

REVIEW 585: BLACKMAIL

Release date:	April 6, 2018
Director:	Abhinay Deo
Cast: Language:	Irrfan, Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh, Divya Dutta, Anuja Sathe, Pradhuman Singh Mall, Omi Vaidya, Gajraj Rao, Neelima Azeem, Urmila Matondkar Hindi

The seven-year itch is a tricky thing. Legend has it that it spurs seemingly regular folk on to highly irregular behaviour even when they are in happy relationships. Imagine then the fate of unhappy couples.

Dev Kaushal (Irrfan) and his pretty young wife Reena (Kirti Kulhari) are stuck in a loveless marriage and have found completely contrasting ways to scratch that itch. His moments of respite come when he masturbates in the office toilet, and when he peeps into his bedroom from a hole in the kitchen wall to gaze at the sleeping Reena. During one of those peering sessions he learns that she too has been seeking relief from him – in the arms of a man she had once wanted to marry.

The trailer has already told us that Dev blackmails the boyfriend, a beefy fellow called Ranjit Arora (Arunoday Singh). The reason: Ranjit is married, and financially dependent on his powerful father-in-law who keeps a tight hold on the purse strings and his damaad’s testicles.

As in director Abhinay Deo’s 2011 venture, the irresistibly maniacal Delhi Belly, here too one misdeed leads to another then another and another until everyone involved gets caught up in a vortex of deception and trickery.

Delhi Belly was a novelty on the Bollywoodscape for various reasons but primarily its chosen genre – black comedy – and its openness about sex and other bodily functions. Blackmail is not as thoroughly alien territory, perhaps because much water and experimentation have passed under the bridge in the seven years since Delhi Belly was released, but this film too is quite unusual for Bollywood.

(Spoiler alert for the ultra-picky reader) Blackmail is cleverly and self-deprecatingly misleading in its early moments. When Dev imagines multiple scenarios each time his head threatens to explode with suppressed anger, the repetition of the device is designed to lull viewers into assuming predictability on the part of the storyteller. Just as you think you have got Deo all figured out though … boom! … he stands the ploy on its head when you are least expecting it. (Spoiler alert ends)

That flip is Blackmail’s big turning point, the moment that urges viewers not to overestimate their own intelligence or underestimate the filmmaker. Surrender is the most sensible option left, and doing so yields considerable dividends.

The hero of Blackmail is not your regular bad guy. The worst thing Dev does before he resorts to blackmail is to steal photos of colleagues’ wives so he can pleasure himself while gazing at them. The believable casualness with which he and others in the film turn to crime is perhaps a commentary on the hidden villain in each of us, lying in wait below the surface, anxious for an excuse to tear through our skin.

(Possible spoiler in this paragraph) Blackmail’s characters are not repulsive, nor do they actively invite pity, but you sense the ennui in fleeting words and actions. Ranjit’s wife, played by Divya Dutta, addresses him as “Tommy”. When he protests, she asks if he would prefer “kutta”.  Ranjit wonders how Dev looks, and Reena replies, “like a husband.” You can almost hear the yawn in those three words. (Spoiler alert ends)

Parveez Shaikh’s screenplay is careful not to mock the lead characters although their exploits are deliberately exaggerated and caricaturish. The ridiculous rigmarole in which they ultimately lose themselves does not match the zip and zing of Delhi Belly, but is nevertheless mad and brisk enough to be exciting in large parts.

Without any overt intellectual intent, Blackmail also holds up a mirror to what unfolds when we allow life to happen to us instead of grabbing the steering wheel with both hands.

The film dips intermittently though. Among its weakest patches is the superficiality in the characterisation of Reena in comparison with the others, and the ordinariness of the writing of two cameos – if Ranjit’s mother-in-law had not been played by Neelima Azeem and if Urmila Matondkar was not featured in Bewafa beauty, there might have been no expectations from either.

Not that Bewafa beauty is an absolute write off – it is, in fact, fairly danceable and hummable – but you do not resurrect the Rangeela girl on the big screen after so many years for a song that is anything short of electrifying in its music and choreography. Worse, the number is abruptly dumped into the narrative.

The scenes at Dev’s office are tepid, owing largely to the unfunnyness of the boss’ obsession with toilet paper that is clearly meant to tickle us.

The film is also strangely indifferent to its setting. Blackmail is located in a city in Maharashtra, but offers none of the detailing and cultural specificities that made Delhi Belly such a delight.

Irrfan seems to be enjoying himself here playing a husband and corporate slave who lacks the energy to lift himself out of his boredom. He falters in a scene in which he confides in his friend Anand (Pradhuman Singh Mall), although the motivation for that decision is in itself so unconvincing that Shaikh should be faulted just as well here.

Besides, Dev is the only one in the story prone to underplaying his emotions, yet with barely discernable touches, the actor conveys the hope with which he had entered into the relationship with Reena and the lethargy that frittered everything away.

Kirti Kulhari is handicapped by limited writing, but still embodies a certain vulnerability through her performance, making Reena a person who is hard to hate despite the affair. (Aside: considering his unconventional career path, it is disappointing to see Irrfan too choosing to star with women who are, on an average, 20 years his junior.)

Arunoday Singh as Ranjit and Divya Dutta as his drunken spouse get the benefit of more over-the-top and meaty roles – both immerse themselves in the action to amusing effect. Jay Oza’s wicked camerawork in their joint scenes and the lens’ menacing gaze at them in a scenario played out in a toilet make those passages particularly memorable.

The standout performance of the lot though comes from Anuja Sathe playing Dev’s co-worker who metamorphoses into an aggressive monster. Sathe is a firecracker who owns her every moment on screen, even managing to overshadow a veteran like Irrfan in their scenes together.

Despite its imperfections, what sustains Blackmail is its irreverence towards the issue of marital infidelity. In an earlier era, such a theme is likely to have been explored only in a grave, weepie feature.

You know times have changed when an adulterous wife is no longer seen as either an off-mainstream focus area or the target of compulsory, lengthy sermonising if she is featured in mainstream cinema. You know times have changed when a male star of Irrfan’s stature merrily plays a chap whose daily routine includes jerking off at the workplace.

You know times have not changed enough when the non-judgemental tone of the film suddenly, without a perceivable progression leading up to that point, turns selectively judgemental towards the woman and sympathetic towards the man with Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics of Bewafa beauty. Sample this: Kul mila ke saiyyanji ke / Achchhe sanskaar thhe / Sajaniya ke lakshan lekin / Thhode tadipaar thhe... (Very roughly: He was, by and large, a nice guy with the right values / she was the sort to go astray.)

The messaging is oblique (Dev and Reena are not present when the song plays) but unmistakable.

Blackmail then is an engaging but flawed tragi-comedy of errors.

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	139 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/blackmail-movie-review-irrfan-and-co-drive-this-engaging-but-flawed-tragi-comedy-of-errors-4420427.html

Poster courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail_(2018_film)

(2) https://www.facebook.com/irrfanofficial/

(3) https://www.facebook.com/KirtiKulhariOfficial/