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Release date:
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March 17, 2017
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Director:
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Vikramaditya
Motwane
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Cast:
Language:
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Rajkummar Rao, Geetanjali
Thapa, Khushboo Upadhyay
Hindi
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At one point during
Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped, much
to my embarrassment, I started in my seat and shook an imagined rat off my
foot, only to realise that what I mistook for a rodent was in fact my handbag
which I had placed there when I sat down. Having recovered from a fright, I
surreptitiously looked around shame-faced, to check that no one in the audience
had noticed the disturbance I thought I had caused. Thankfully they had not.
This is the kind of
reaction a film elicits only when it zeroes in on the audience’s own fears,
especially those we are expected to – but do not – grow past when we enter
adulthood. Everyone has ’em. Mine are rats, lizards and – even at this age –
ghosts standing behind curtains in darkened rooms at night. Motwane picks the
first item on that list and effectively whips up the eeriness quotient of his
film as a result.
Trapped is the story of a young man in Mumbai who gets locked
in a flat in an empty high-rise building. In the absence of food, water and
electricity, 35 storeys above the ground, he struggles to remain alive through
the several days that it takes him to figure out an escape route.
At first, it is hard not to be
intrigued by the innovative ways in which Shaurya (played by Rajkummar Rao) manages
to keep himself going. His claustrophobia and dread are palpable. That rat, for
one – yikes!
Cinematographer Siddarth Diwan
draws us into the protagonist’s struggles by hugging him so close that it often
feels like we are walking with him rather than watching him. When the camera
does draw away, it does so with a specific purpose, usually highlighting Rao’s,
and therefore Shaurya’s, littleness. We are reminded then, that this is no Rana
Daggubati or John Abraham or a conventional film hero by any yardstick; this is
a small man facing a mammoth challenge lost in a tiny corner of a mammoth city.
Films such as this one, where a
solo individual struggles against apparently insurmountable odds, work best
when the audience is truly invested in the central figure rediscovering
themselves through an ordeal. Like Chuck in Robert Zemeckis’ Castaway, Pi in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi and – my favourite of the
genre – Aron in Danny Boyle’s unbelievably enthralling 127 Hours. Shaurya does not enter their league because for the most
part, all we get is a surface feel of the man behind his Everyman appearance. So
yes, he is a non-descript chap who rises above his seeming ordinariness in
extraordinary circumstances, and yes, he comes up with ingenious ways to beat
the odds he is up against in that isolated flat, but Trapped fails to capture his heart and mind with depth.
What the film ends up being then
is a series of oh-my-did-he-really-do-that and what-would-I-have-done-in-the-same-situation
moments, which too lose their sheen in the last half hour. Shaurya’s survival
tactics remain admirable throughout if
you give them some thought, but the manner in which they are portrayed becomes
too matter-of-fact after a while and ceases to inspire the awe it should as a
reflex response. Trapped is in
trouble as soon as the sense of urgency wanes.
Worse, the film does not quite
manage to convey the inexorable passage of time (an element so crucial to the
genre) in that cramped space, a couple of solutions fall into place rather too
easily towards the end, and logic takes a walk beyond a point. For instance,
with so little nutrition available to him despite his inventiveness, how does
Shaurya not collapse from fatigue in that flat? No doubt a statement is being
made about modern urban life and how unconnected denizens of a sprawling metropolis
can be, but it still defies believability that not a soul in his life bothers
to look for him.
Rao is a fine actor, we already
know that. He underplays Shaurya well, but the sustained sense of possible doom
and his unbreakable resolve, both essential to a film like this, can come only
from compelling writing and direction, not from good acting alone.
Geetanjali Thapa is reasonably
effective in her brief appearances in Trapped
as Shaurya’s friend Noorie. Khushboo Upadhyay has barely a few seconds of
screen time as a woman living near Shaurya’s multi-storey deathtrap, but those
moments are enough to note that she is an artiste with a screen presence who is
worth watching out for.
This is Motwane’s third film as a
director and it is clear that minimalism is his natural style. His debut, Udaan, which won multiple awards in
India and was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2010’s Un
Certain Regard section, simmered with explosive rage rendered all the more
forceful because of his no-frills storytelling. Lootera was gripping, with both Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh
toning themselves down to fit the film. In Trapped
though, Motwane takes the unfussy direction too far.
It is one thing to avoid
high-pitched melodrama, but quite another to allow your film to lapse into lack
of energy. Trapped is interesting to
begin with. It also makes telling comments about the loneliness of individuals
in a crowd and the downside of a city that never sleeps: if no one is ever
silent long enough to listen, how can your cry for help – literal or
metaphorical – ever be heard?
Sadly though, the film is unable
to maintain those interest levels through its 102 minutes and 56 seconds running
time. This promising premise combined with the formidable talents of Vikramaditya
Motwane and Rajkummar Rao should have added up to much more.
Rating
(out of five stars): **
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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102 minutes 56 seconds
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_(2017_film)
