REVIEW 593: DAAS DEV

Release date:	April 27, 2018
Director:	Sudhir Mishra
Cast: Language:	Rahul Bhat, Richa Chadha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Saurabh Shukla, Vipin Sharma, Dalip Tahil, Deepraj Rana, Anil George, Sohaila Kapur, Vineet Kumar Singh, Anurag Kashyap Hindi

Text flashed on screen before the first scene rolls lets on that this film is inspired by both Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novella Devdas, arguably the most adapted home-grown literary work in Indian cinema, and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. What common ground could there possibly be between the story of a weak-willed Bengali aristocrat drowning his unconsummated love in alcohol, and a Danish prince drowning in a desire for revenge against his scheming uncle and allegedly traitorous mother? What meeting point is there between a spineless fellow who wept at a fate he could have fashioned if he had had the courage to defy his convention-ridden, classist parents, and another so single-minded in his quest for vendetta that he let everything else in his life slip away as a result?

The answer is quite simple, actually: it lies in the self-destructiveness of both Hamlet and Devdas. In merging these two characters and turning each on its head in the end, Sudhir Mishra has conducted one of the most exciting writing experiments seen in a while for the Hindi film screen. The writer-director’s protagonist Dev Pratap Chauhan (played by Rahul Bhat) is melancholy like the legendary fictional men on whom he is based, but is not fatalistic like the foolish – and frankly, boring – Devdas, nor quite as mentally muddled as Hamlet.

Mishra’s Daas Dev might have been phenomenal then if its women characters – based on the Paro, Chandramukhi and Queen Gertrude prototypes – had been written as well as the leading man. Sadly, they are not.

Daas Dev is set in the political badlands of Uttar Pradesh where, in the opening scene in 1997, we see Dev’s father, the charismatic star politician Vishambhar Pratap Chauhan’s very public and untimely death before his little son’s eyes. Twenty years later, the boy is now a drug addict, an alcoholic and a laggard, in love with his childhood friend Paro (Richa Chadha), daughter of his late father’s right hand man Naval Singh (Anil George) who has been politically exiled by Dev’s uncle Awdesh Pratap Chauhan (Saurabh Shukla).

The Chauhan family wealth is managed by Shrikant Sahay (Dalip Tahil) and his Woman Friday cum fixer-about-town Chandni Mehra (Aditi Rao Hydari) who is in love with Dev. She watches over him through his tumultuous relationships, his desperate attempt to recover from his substance abuse and his journey from indifference to interest in politics, knowing that he does not reciprocate her feelings for him.

The first half hour of Daas Dev is intriguing. Chandni is the narrator, the one who has watched and seen more than anyone realises. Oddly enough though, she is completely marginalised halfway through the storyline, so that what remains of her in memory now is not her strength but Hydari’s flawless back to which Mishra has paid considerably greater attention than to the writing of her character.

Paro and Chandramukhi were far more appealing people than Devdas in the original text. The screenplay by Mishra and Jaydeep Sarkar does wonderful things to the main man but seems not to know what to do with these two strong women. Richa Chadha still manages to lend some spark to Paro, but Hydari seems unable to rise above her exquisite looks to invest herself in Chandni. More than ever, her limp performance made me long for Madhuri Dixit’s firecracker of a Chandramukhi in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 extravaganza Devdas.

As for Gertrude, in this case Dev’s mother Sushila Devi (Sohaila Kapur) – she exists on the sidelines for so long that even the wonderful Kapur’s speaking eyes cannot save her from being anything other than a sidelight, albeit one who eventually turns out to be pivotal to the plot.

The men are better served by the writing, and some of them return the favour with gusto. Rahul Bhat has the remarkable ability to look bruised, damaged and torn when he gets into a character. His Dev, who is a slave (daas) of his own weaknesses until he finds his life’s purpose, is a beautifully broken fellow, still mourning the loss of a beloved father he idolised and deriving his earnestness towards politics from the memory of that idealistic man. Bhat gives his character both vulnerability and strength, making you wonder why we see him so rarely on the big screen and why he is so vastly underrated.

DoP Sachin K. Krishn’s use of darkness and shadows in Daas Dev enhances the air of intrigue in the plot and is especially dramatic around Dev. There are shots in which his face is completely black, his reactions therefore inscrutable if it weren’t for the actor’s body language.

Vipin Sharma playing a wily politician is fantastic as always, as is Saurabh Shukla. Producer-director-writer Anurag Kashyap makes a short but impactful appearance as Vishambhar, giving us yet another reminder – after 2016’s Akira – that he is an under-explored actor. Vineet Kumar Singh, who was astonishingly good on his debut as a lead earlier this year in Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz, is impressive in a brief role as a man in love with Paro.

The uneven characterisation apart, the plot too unfolds in a series of twists and turns that, though not unconvincing, play out in a narrative style that feels by now too familiar in the mould of films made by Prakash Jha, Kashyap and Mishra himself.

Someone on the team of Daas Dev seems to have assumed that you can compensate for inconsistent writing with an unrelenting soundtrack. Although several of the songs in Daas Dev are quite lovely (in particular Sehmi hai dhadkan composed by Vipin Patwa, Rangdaari by Arko and Challa chaap chunariya by Sandesh Shandilya) there are just too many musical interludes in the film, and the songs and background score are played too much and too loud so that at one point when a character snapped, “Can you shut off that damned song?” for a moment I thought someone in the audience had called out those words because the music had gotten so overbearing by then.

It is surprising that writing would be the Achilles heel of a film by Mishra, the man who co-wrote the screenplay of Kundan Shah’s cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, but that is the way the cookie crumbles in Daas Dev. When Mishra released Yeh Saali Zindagi in 2011, I remember writing that that film felt over-crowded with characters and complications. Ditto for this one. A Devdas-cum-Hamlet story still feels like it is worth a shot, perhaps even another shot by Mishra, but this one fails to live up to its promise  despite an excellent central performance and an unusual interpretation of two iconic literary characters.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	140 minutes

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

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/daas-dev-movie-review-sudhir-mishra-stands-devdas-and-hamlet-nicely-on-their-heads-but-does-not-live-up-to-his-own-promise-4447635.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/DaasdevTheFilm/

REVIEW 559: UNION LEADER

Release date:	January 19, 2018
Director:	Sanjay Patel
Cast: Language:	Rahul Bhat, Tillotama Shome, Tirth Sharma, Haresh Dagiya, Chetan Daiya, Jay Bhatt, Vivek Ghamande, Jay Vithlani, Jayesh More Hindi

The workers at Apollo Chemicals, a chromium sulfate factory in Gujarat, are falling like ninepins. Many have developed respiratory disorders and ulcers, others cancer, some have died as a result. The head of their union is indifferent to their plight since he has sold his soul to the management. As more men succumb to the unsafe conditions in which they operate, another leader emerges from their midst. Reluctantly at first, and then more decisively, Jay Gohil (Rahul Bhat) takes it upon himself to ensure that his colleagues get justice and Apollo is set in order.

India-born, Canada-based director Sanjay Patel’s Union Leader goes where few Hindi films have bothered to tread in the past two decades: to the area of workers’ rights, once the favoured destination of parallel cinema and the pre-1990s mainstream. Union Leader’s strength is that it is committed to its cause, it seems to have some knowledge about the inner workings of a chemical factory and its weight rests on the capable shoulders of Rahul Bhat, an actor of tremendous talent who has inexplicably been largely ignored by mainstream Bollywood.

Bhat was fantastic in Anurag Kashyap’s underrated 2014 film Ugly. Here in Union Leader, he brings an X factor to his performance that rises above the limitations of the screenplay. Even before we are told that Jay is in physical pain, it is possible to sense an underlying suffering that he is not revealing to us, to sense that there is more to that furrowed brow than just his worries for his co-workers and his family.

Bhat’s charisma and Patel’s evident good intentions help Union Leader pull through despite the pale writing of several promising supporting characters and the too convenient resolution of the workers’ issues. In truth, labour unions in India are up against the rarely-surmounted combined might of unscrupulous industrialists, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats in addition to double agents in their midst, with their troubles compounded by caste and regional divides. Union Leader fails to convey the extreme complexity of the circumstances in which the country’s poor factory hands find themselves.

In addition to Jay’s colleagues, we are also introduced to his wife Geeta (Tillotama Shome) and teenaged son Harsh (Tirth Sharma). Shome here carries forward her reputation as a dependable actor. Sharma made a mark as the heroine’s schoolmate in Advait Chandan’s Secret Superstar just a few months back, and lives up to that promise here. The warmth in the trio’s equation, Harsh’s fledgling interest in Gandhian values and his influence over his initially cynical father give the film its relatability.

It is also nice that though the screenplay portrays Jay’s journey from hesitation to complete involvement in the workers’ struggles, it does not feel the need to show him metamorphosing into a ferocious sloganeer and orator. He remains, till the end, a low-key man whose fierceness lies entirely within.

Where the film falters is in its exploration of the battles at Apollo Chemicals. In the engaging first half, the conversations between Jay and his co-workers feel real, the actors playing those supporting parts feel not like actors at all and Darren Fung’s music sets a muted mood that serves to highlight the despair and turmoil in their midst. As it progresses though, Union Leader is unable to effectively tap its supporting cast. I wanted to be better acquainted with Jay’s colleagues beyond the realm of their problems that are discussed at length pre-interval, but after the break the writers add little to our understanding of them as persons. This robs Union Leader of the emotional stirrings that should be a given in such a story.

The screenplay by Patel himself and John Winston Rainey is also unable to capture the magnitude of the problem at hand, the years of back-breaking, dispiriting toil that go into procuring workers their rights. This is not to say that the labour scenario is entirely hopeless or that no legislative and judicial battles have ever been won, but that the ease with which victory is achieved is unconvincing in Union Leader. The film’s portrayal of trade unionism is too simplistic then for it to be considered a serious study of the subject or for it to leave a lasting impression.

Still, this is clearly a heartfelt film. Whatever be its weaknesses, the genuineness of Patel’s concern and Bhat’s sincerity make Union Leader watchable.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	106 minutes 20 seconds

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/union-leader-movie-review-rahul-bhat-tillotama-shomes-film-is-simplistic-but-heartfelt-4310511.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/unionleaderthefilm/

REVIEW 375: JAI GANGAAJAL

Release date:	March 4, 2016
Director:	Prakash Jha
Cast: Language:	Priyanka Chopra, Manav Kaul, Prakash Jha, Ninad Kamat, Rahul Bhat, Vega Tamotia, Murli Sharma, Queen Harish Hindi

Is this film the fantasy Prakash Jha has been inching towards all these years? The writer-director of Jai Gangaajal has done well to cast Priyanka Chopra as Superintendent of Police Abha Mathur of Bankipur – a tough cop who is keen to play by the rules – and Manav Kaul as Babloo Pandey, a vicious politician who has a stranglehold on his constituency. Where he goes wide of the mark though is in casting himself in a prominent role and mistaking himself for Ajay Devgn.

The policeman he plays in Jai Gangaajal – Bhola Nath Singh a.k.a. Circle Babu, for whom integrity is a fluid concept – ends up as the fulcrum of the story. The dilution of Priyanka/Abha and Manav/Babloo’s storylines might still have been okay if Prakash Babu could act. He cannot.

When Abha and Babloo’s paths intermittently cross, we get glimpses of what Jai Gangaajal might have been. When, however, the spotlight repeatedly moves away from them and falls on Prakash/Bhola, the film sags. The result: an uneven narrative which works when Abha and Babloo are on screen but goes lacklustre in almost every scene focused on Bhola Nath.

The set-up is promising. The SP of Bankipur is transferred when he decides to take action against Bhola for selling his soul to the region’s netas. In comes Abha, whose political mentor assumes she will do his bidding while he works towards his goal of becoming Bihar’s chief minister. He soon discovers that Abha is no puppet.

Bankipur at that point is under a siege laid by Babloo and his brother Dabloo Pandey (Ninad Kamat) who are terrorising the local farmers into selling off their land to make way for a power plant being set up by a corporate giant. Every form of violence – from emotional to physical – is unleashed on those who refuse. This leads to a clash between Abha and Babloo. What follows is a set of circumstances that causes Bhola Nath to turn over a new leaf. The story subsequently examines this question: should honest police personnel stand by while the public takes the law into their own hands to settle scores with netas and goondas who are ruining their lives?

In a country where online lynch mobs are increasingly demanding kangaroo courts and “off with his head” medieval-era justice, where some news anchors and too many politicians back populism and sensationalism over sanity, Jai Gangaajal could have been a crucial commentary on the dangers of mobocracy. Abha’s determination not to bow to public pressure is important in this respect because she is simultaneously battling corrupt politicians on another front.

Unfortunately, Prakash Babu sacrifices his heroine and this significant theme at the altar of his ego. Too much screen space is given to Bhola Nath, too many close-ups, too many fights, too many dialogues, too many silences, in short, too much of everything, although the actor-director does not possess the acting talent or screen presence to back the faith he has in himself.

Watching him in action, I found myself getting nostalgic about Mukesh Tiwari’s brilliant performance as the corrupt policeman Bacha Yadav who develops a conscience in Gangaajal, the 2003 precursor to this film. Whatever your arguments may be with Gangaajal’s politics, you have to concede that it possessed energy, focus, a sense of urgency and a stellar cast. As Jai Gangaajal persists in wandering away from Abha’s confrontation with Babloo, it ends up being an overly long, terribly unoriginal production.

The film’s gender politics is superficial and skewed. Quite ridiculously, the fact that Abha is a woman SP of a conservative region seems to play zero part in the public and politicians’ response to her. This could have been one of the distinguishing factors between Jai Gangaajal and most of the other police dramas we’ve seen in Bollywood history, but the film fails to delve into this angle at all.

Priyanka has the pizzazz and the body for difficult stunts, as we have already seen in Don 1 & 2. This film is further proof that she is well-suited to the action genre. In fact, one of Jai Gangaajal’s best-executed scenes has her single-handedly bashing up a rapist in a town square (I am NOT commenting on police violence here, only her physical prowess). What the film needed was more wolf-whistle-worthy fisticuffs involving this charismatic star, more screen time for her and greater depth in her characterisation.

Sadly, Jai Gangaajal does not tick any of these three check-boxes.

As exasperating as that fatal flaw is its token feminism. When a film goes against the Bollywood norm by featuring a glamorous, commercially successful female star playing a no-nonsense policewoman in the lead, it is clearly positioning itself as being liberal on the gender front. Yet, Jai Gangaajal casually throws up dialogues about men being eunuchs/neutered if they are not empowered or courageous.

At one point, when a junior sees Abha taking on Babloo’s goons for the first time, he says admiringly: Aaj aap humey mard bana diye hai, hum toh soche thhey ki hum napunsak hi mar jaayenge (Today, you have made us men. We were afraid we would die eunuchs). He then proceeds to bash up some villains because…in Jai Gangaajal’s book, that’s what ‘real men’ do?

In a later scene, Abha herself uses the word naamard for a man she views with contempt. This is what happens when you make an apparently feminist move, not out of conviction but because feminism is the fad of the day and faking it is the latest social trend.

Still, when the camera is on Priyanka Chopra and Manav Kaul, Jai Gangaajal is watchable. The film suffers sorely because Prakash Jha makes it too much about himself.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	149 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/jai-gangajal-review-even-priyanka-chopra-cant-save-this-film-that-reeks-of-token-feminism-2656988.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/JaiGangaajal/