REVIEW 785: RAAT AKELI HAI

Release date: July 31, 2020 (on Netflix) 

Director: Honey Trehan

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Padmavati Rao, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Ila Arun, Shreedhar Dubey, Aditya Srivastava, Riya Shukla, Shweta Tripathi, Swanand Kirkire, Tigmanshu Dhulia

Language: Hindi

Sometimes a film has the power to grip you from the very second it takes off. Honey Trehan’s Raat Akeli Hai (RAH) does that, grabbing attention with a vice-like hold from the moment it opens with a chilling murder on a deserted highway in the inky blackness of the night. 

Fast forward to five years later, and there is another murder: a rich old man is found shot and with his face bashed up on his wedding night. Inspector Jatil Yadav is called in to investigate (yes, Jatil, not Jatin – there is an amusing story there).

The elderly victim had money and a wealth of people around him. Yadav realises within minutes of being inserted into their lives that no one is above suspicion: not the dead man’s pregnant daughter, not his drug-taking son or the son-in-law whose sole concern is his claim to the family fortune. Then there is the victim’s enigmatic sister and niece, an arrogant nephew, the young bride herself and the domestic help who seems to know more than she lets on. 

While sifting through clues and possible motivations, Yadav, who is edging towards middle age, must also deal with his pesky albeit well-meaning mother’s marriage goals for him.  

Trehan has so far been known as one of Bollywood’s top casting directors. The meticulousness with which he and his colleague Taran Bajaj have picked actors for even minuscule roles in RAH explains his reputation for excellence in that department. The confidence with which he has helmed this film belies the reality that it marks his directorial debut. 

Every frame of RAH, every technical aspect, has been handled with extreme care. The film plays out mostly in darkness. Open spaces late at night where fires are replicated by the reflective surfaces on which they fall and the red-tinted low-lit interiors of homes elegantly captured by DoP Pankaj Kumar set up, heighten and sustain the sense of intrigue and suspense in the narrative. It can be safely concluded that Kumar has superhuman abilities since his repertoire ranges from the visual philosophy of Ship of Theseus to the atmospherics of RAH.    

The writing by Smita Singh (who has been credited with the story, screenplay and dialogues) pays heed to even the minutiae in the life and demeanour of each character. RAH is an effective crime thriller, but goes well beyond that to also serve as a running commentary on state politics and the sociology of small-town north India. 

The most visceral statement emanating from Singh’s story is about the way society punishes women victims of sexual abuse, irrespective of class, and views them with suspicion while covering up the sins of their male predators. She also finds space for colourism, a telling reference to the double standards inherent in Hindutva politics, and a spectrum of hypocrisy where a target of prejudice may very well turn out to be prejudiced in their own way – like the man who is rejected by a woman because he is too dark-skinned for her taste, who in turn says her attire indicates that she is not as “susheel” (good, modest) as he would like his wife to be. 

“Susheel” is translated as “virginal” in the subtitles, which is an interesting interpretation of the Hindi word. It is a measure of the importance Raat Akeli Hai gives to detail that the subs have been done by no less a personage than Abhishek Chaubey (director of Dedh Ishqiya and Udta Punjab, and one of this film’s producers) along with Utsav Maitra. 

 This team clearly has an affection for language and is aware that subtitles across Indian cinemas often wreck the director’s and writer’s intent. Singh’s dialogues merit every bit of that love. 

Despite the large ensemble of characters, Singh and Trehan make each one distinctive. 

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Jatil Yadav switches with characteristic ease from hard-as-nails policeman to a softer version of himself. 

Radhika Apte as the much-hated bride, Radha, embodies an oppressed yet defiant, despairing yet still spirited woman wronged. 

Each actor stands out in their own right, though I must say it was a pleasure to see Riya Shukla – who earlier played Swara Bhasker’s acid-tongued daughter in Nil Battey Sannata – here playing a significant part as the terrified household help. 

In his role as a senior policeman, Tigmanshu Dhulia’s natural timing seems particularly well-suited to the local flavour of the dialogues. 

Shreedhar Dubey makes himself likeable as Yadav’s gossipy deputy who personifies casual misogyny with his assumptions about who done it – a reminder that patriarchy is perpetuated not necessarily by men with horns on their heads but by the ‘nice guys’ too. 

And Ila Arun is utterly loveable as Yadav’s mother. I melted into a puddle as I heard her explain what his father meant to her. 

In the midst of so much that is good, two points about RAH are a cause for concern. Firstly, the relationship Yadav tries to build with a woman in the film is exploitative because of the unequal power equation between them, far worse than perhaps even a doctor wooing a patient or a lawyer wooing a client because when he first makes an aggressive overture towards her, he is in a position to destroy her completely. This is not to say that no man would make such a move in real life, but that this particular man’s behaviour here seems inconsistent with his characterisation until then and thereafter, and that the script does not bat an eyelid in the matter, which becomes noteworthy considering the progressiveness of the rest of the writing. 

The finale gets stretched for over 20 minutes after the big reveal, partly due to the Agatha Christie-style gathering of all the players in a single room for the detective to say his piece (which is sweet) and partly due to a needless bow to the conventional definition of happily-ever-after. The closing scene feels odd not just because it is unnecessary but also because of the lack of chemistry between the two actors and characters involved. By this time though, RAH had me completely engrossed and in a forgiving mood.

It helps that the film closes right then with one of the mood songs Sneha Khanwalkar has created for it. Khanwalkar’s soundtrack and Karan Kulkarni’s background score play a crucial role in RAH’s pensive tone. 

Raat Akeli Hai (The Night Is Alone / Lonely / Solitary) marks the advent on the Hindi film scene of a bold new voice. Here is some breaking news of the happy variety: director Honey Trehan has arrived.  

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)

Running time: 150 minutes

Photo courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 298: SONALI CABLE

Release date:	October 17, 2014
Director:	Charudatt Acharya
Cast: Language:	Rhea Chakraborty, Ali Fazal, Smita Jaykar, Anupam Kher, Swanand Kirkire Hindi

If David doesn’t look like David in a David-vs-Goliath film, you know you have a problem.

The film shares its title with a small-time cable Internet agency in Mumbai, the owner of which refuses to sell her shop when a large corporate entity called Shining decides it wants to monopolise the broadband business in the city. Sonali Dattaram Tandel (Rhea Chakraborty) is a feisty, fiery creature who won’t brook nonsense from anyone. Abandoned by her mother in her childhood, now as an adult she mothers her alcoholic father (Swanand Kirkire). If you want to buy out her tiny enterprise, Sonali Cable, you don’t phone her and tell her to visit you in your humungous office building with the intimidatingly massive lobby; you don’t tell her, you make a polite request. Goes without saying that there’s nothing polite about the bullies in suits from Shining.

And thence commences the enmity that almost destroys this gutsy gali ki chhokri, her friendships and especially her relationship with her boyfriend Raghu (Ali Fazal), son of Mumbai politician Meenatai Pawar (Smita Jaykar).

Disappointingly for a film co-produced by veteran Ramesh Sippy and his son Rohan, the lady neta’s name is its only cheeky touch. The late Balasaheb Thackeray’s wife was Meenatai, and Pawar is, well, you know the Pawars. Looks like writer-director Charudatt Acharya was having fun there.

No idea what happened thereafter. The introduction to the disparate cast of characters working with Sonali and the basic plotline are successful in getting viewer interest piqued. Unfortunately, too much unravels too soon in this film.

There are many elements that appear promising – the father-daughter relationship minus the presence of a mother figure (not common in Bollywood films), the personal touch offered by small business operators, the potential collusion between politics and big business, the bleak future of small businesses when that collusion takes place, and more. All this is particularly relevant in the context of the continuing FDI-in-retail-vs-the-future-of-kirana-stores debate. Sadly, Acharya fails to flesh out these elements and take them forward, which is odd considering that his earlier co-writing credits include films vastly superior to this one: the unusual horror flick Vaastu Shastra, the interesting though inconsistent Dum Maaro Dum and the delightfully quirky, layered Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Nautanki Saala (the last two directed by Rohan Sippy). Sonali Cable merely skims the surface of everything it deals with, while our little Ms David and the people at Shining end up looking like clichés.

Besides, though the actors in Sonali’s office and home settings are believable, and Smita Jaykar feels very real as a politician of questionable morals, Rhea Chakraborty sticks out like a sore thumb. She is just too glammed-up to fit the part of a young woman sweating it out in a narrow bylane in lower middle-class quarters in a congested city. She has an expressive face but her makeup is too flawless, her jewellery too well-matched to her stylish, figure-emphasising clothes. In a country where working women are extremely careful about the way they are turned out for fear of being misunderstood, I’m not saying a real-life Sonali Tandel shouldn’t dress like this woman, but that she wouldn’t dress like her on the job in the kind of job she does.

Sonali’s posture too is more like that of a professional model at a studio shoot than a woman running a corner shop. Notice how she stands, her dainty hands planted just above her hips to underline her tiny waist that is already highlighted by her impeccably cut tops. Let’s get real!

Ali Fazal is the cute-looking guy who played Vidya Balan’s boyfriend in Bobby Jasoos earlier this year. Fazal has a likeable screen presence and delivers a neat performance here, despite the half-baked screenplay. The redeeming factor for Chakraborty is that she has good chemistry with him. In fact, they’re hot together when they cuddle up.

The villains in the story never make the transition from cardboard cutouts to real human beings: there’s the sleazy corporation owner (Anupam Kher), his obsequious second-in-command who is out of his depth in the job throughout but is not fired anyway, and a third man who seems far wiser than the second-in-command but does not take over the job. At least Kher’s character boasts of an innovative quirk that is effectively icky: he has a earbud permanently stuck in his ear, thus constantly conjuring up visions of ear wax and – don’t ask me why – people who pick their noses or men who don’t wash their hands after peeing. This, his obsession with khakra and the ridiculous tasks he gives his ever-on-call gori firangi Woman Friday are amusing to begin with, but after a while they become yawn-worthy and you want to see evidence of action in his bustling mega-company beyond those three men mostly cooped up in a room.

The last thing you would expect from Ramesh and Rohan Sippy is a film that looks like it ran out of both money and imagination early on. In addition to better writing and casting, this one needed more extras in more frames and sets that weren’t trying hard to look like natural settings.

Sweetness of intent can’t make up for superficial content. Too much of Sonali Cable feels as if a section of the team lost interest in this project long before it was wrapped up.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	128 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonali_Cable

REVIEW 141: MAXIMUM

Release date:	June 29, 2012
Director:	Kabeer Kaushik
Cast:	Sonu Sood, Naseeruddin Shah, Neha Dhupia, Swanand Kirkire, Vinay Pathak, Arya Babbar

Maximum needed a more imaginative title. That single word does little to convey the quiet grimness of this violent-yet-mellow film that has stayed with me since I saw it.

It may seem like familiar territory, yet director Kabeer Kaushik’s exploration of the police-politician-builder-gangster nexus in Maharashtra is more intricate than the many repetitive films on the subject we’ve seen in recent years. Sonu Sood – who deserves a body of work to match that fabulous body and talent – is Pratap Pandit, a Mumbai policeman whose long-standing rivalry with fellow cop Arun Inaamdar (Naseeruddin Shah) defines both their careers. They are both unscrupulous, efficient encounter specialists with a wide network of informers; both cultivate and are cultivated by politicians and businessmen. The film takes us from 2003 when Mumbai is waging a battle with the underworld to the post-26/11 period, during which their enmity is chronicled by a young journalist (Amit Sadh).

What distinguishes Maximum from other films set against the same backdrop is the understated and brave comment on the closed-mindedness of Mumbai, and the fact that the leading men are also the villains of the story yet make no bones about their amorality and display no desire whatsoever to reform themselves. Pratap is not just a murderous cop, he’s also got a roving eye; he spends his nights at dance bars and has an affair with a film star (Anjana Sukhani) while his wife (Neha Dhupia) takes care of his home and child. The Mrs is aware of his shenanigans, but like us, he seduces her too although his faults stare us in the face. Some of this has to do with the fact that Sonu Sood is a really attractive guy with an extremely likeable personality – that was evident when we saw him as the towering Prince Sujamal in Jodhaa Akbar, and even when the shirtless Chhedi Singh’s intimidatingly expansive, well-muscled torso was punched and pummelled by the diminutive Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan) in Dabangg. But most of all, Pratap Pandit works because Sonu is a remarkable actor. Just watch that fleeting expression on his face when he first spots his actress lover to know that.

Sonu has good company in Maximum’s splendid cast: there’s Sadh whose journalist defies the Hindi film norm; Vinay Pathak plays a Maharashtra politician with a soft corner for Pratap, reminding us that he is capable of so much more than the goofy simpleton he’s been stuck with since the commercial success of Bheja Fry; lyricist Swanand Kirkire is a revelation as Pratap’s colleague; even Naseer appears more involved than he sometimes seems in his films these days.

Having said that, though the screenplay explores Pratap’s life and character with great depth, little time is spent on Naseer’s Arun Inaamdar beyond the shootouts and backroom politics. If I met Pratap’s wife, saw him in hospital waiting for news of his unwell father and watched him accompany his daughter to sports practice, then I’d like to have known the Arun behind the policeman too. This is my one big grouse – and it’s a very big grouse – against the film’s otherwise strong writing by Kabeer Kaushik and Rakhi Soman. You can’t claim that you are telling us the story of “two cops, one journey” and then neglect Cop No. 2. This is unfortunate since the script has so much else to recommend it, so many subtleties and so much home work: the journalist, for instance. Hindi film mediapersons are usually on extreme ends of the integrity spectrum: so Bachchan’s TV channel boss in RGV’s Rann was almost a saint, while every single TV reporter in Anusha Rizvi’s Peepli Live was a sellout. The journalist in Maximum is painstakingly honest in one respect (he is struggling to get a house in Mumbai, but will not allow Pratap to call one of his builder contacts for him); on the other hand, it’s evident that he is far too involved with Pratap’s life to have the distance that a journalist requires to tell a story objectively ... well, like the confusingly likeable Pratap, this man felt real too.

Maximum’s entire soundtrack is worth a recommendation, in particular Amjad-Nadeem’s Aaja meri jaan sung by Tochi Raina and Ritu Pathak; Daniel B. George’s excellent background score; and Devi Sri Prasad’s foot-tapping Aa ante Amalapuram with its amusing lyrics by Raqueeb Alam (it’s a joy to hear singer Malathy belt out the words “Yindian rhythm” in the song). Even Hazel Keech as Aa ante’s dance bar girl with the voluptuous body and visible love handles feels so much more believable than the gym-toned actresses who usually do such numbers these days.

Krishna Ramanan’s camerawork is like the rest of the film: much thought has clearly gone into it yet it seems effortless, never more so than in that long shot of Pratap striding towards us, his gun placed in his trousers’ front pocket, prominently and precariously close to his groin. Ramanan gives us a Mumbai of cloudy greys, in keeping with the tone of a movie in which a politician with the surname Tiwari tells a young journalist from Lucknow: Yeh sheher jagah toh deta hai, lekin apnaata nahin hai. In the era of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, that’s a gutsy statement to make; and it’s made here without any chest-thumping or flag waving, sans a sloganeering tone. A pity that Maximum comes to theatres with such minimal publicity.

Rating (out of five): ***

CBFC Rating:                       A

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_(film)