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Release
date:
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December 13, 2019
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Director:
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Gopi
Puthran
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Cast:
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Rani
Mukerji, Vishal Jethwa, Prasanna Ketkar, Rajesh Sharma
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Language:
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Hindi
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“When
a woman is talented and successful, then society expects that in exchange for
being allowed to go so far, she must
be willing to conduct herself with humility and an unassuming demeanour,”
Shivani Shivaji Roy’s boss tells her one day.
Shivani
fills in the spaces he leaves blank: “...and if she does not, then in big
cities she is called a bitch and in small towns a nakchadi kutiya.”
Ms
Roy’s boss is not being a jerk. He is, in fact, an ally
putting into words what most smart, professionally successful women face every
day. This harsh reality lies at the core of writer-director Gopi Puthran’s
gritty, gripping thriller Mardaani 2,
a sequel to the 2014 box-office hit Mardaani.
As in the first film, here too Rani Mukerji plays Shivani, a brilliant,
no-nonsense policewoman who ruffles feathers with her disinterest in
social niceties and indifference to the male ego.
Shivani
has been assigned to Kota in Rajasthan when a local criminal hires a very young
hitman called Sunny to do some work for a politician in the city.
Sunny sees red when women wound his pride, and nothing wounds him more than
a public takedown – either of him or of another man in his presence – by a
woman. When he witnesses a girl admonishing her boyfriend for a perceived wrong
one day, he rapes, tortures and murders her as punishment. This sets
Shivani off on his trail. When he sees her, a female member of the police force, mocking him at a press
conference, he becomes obsessed with showing her her place. Thus begins a game
of thrust and parry between this murderous maniac and a sharp,
tough-as-nails policewoman.
It
is rare for a Hindi film to create a portrait of no-holds-barred evil without
caricaturing the villain in question, at the very least giving him a
weird quirk, a catchphrase or even a disability. Case in point: Riteish
Deshmukh’s character in last month’s Marjaavaan.
Mardaani 2 has no time for such immaturity.
Sunny is cruel, his ego is fragile around
women and when we discover his background, we get a clearly well-researched
insight into the deep-rootedness of patriarchy in our society and the anatomy
of violence.
Sunny
is a frightening and extreme manifestation of the resentment that confident
women face at every turn, not just in public places but also in their
offices, social circles and homes, sometimes behind a mask of
sophistication. In fact, when he occasionally directly
addresses the audience, the device –
forgotten too soon in the film – serves as an unnerving
reminder of our proximity to the brutes in our midst.
As
uncommon as its depiction of villainy is Mardaani
2’s portrayal of an independent woman (barring the irritating, problematic
title – for more on that please click here for my review of the first Mardaani). In the past decade,
as it has moved away from the cliché of the heroine as a coy, ideally
home-bound virgin, Bollywood has come up with another stereotype: Hindi film writers and directors have tended to
reductively equate female independence with smoking, drinking, a
vocabulary packed with abuse and even obnoxiousness towards those
around them, often making these the woman’s defining characteristics. Look
no further than Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan
in 2018 starring Taapsee Pannu. Shivani in Mardaani may or may not have habits that her doctor would object
to, Gopi Puthran simply does not feel the
need to point to them, and her vocabulary, while certainly not antiseptic, is
not her identifying feature. What defines her is her brilliance, bravery
and dedication to the job.
Although we are not left in any doubt about who is the boss
in Mardaani 2, DoP Jishnu Bhatacharya
does not giganticise Mukerji’s Shivani as is the norm
with male superstars in action dramas. This is obviously in keeping with the
director’s vision for the film. So is the sensitivity with which Bhatacharya
shoots Sunny’s victims. His camera is an observer and reporter, not a voyeur,
and the women are treated with utmost dignity.
Puthran – who earlier wrote Mardaani, which was directed by Pradeep Sarkar – lets Shivani and
Sunny completely dominate Mardaani 2,
but their characters are so detailed, the tension between them so palpable and
the action so unrelenting that the plot feels never less than packed. The
background is also dotted with enough characters giving us a glimpse into their
respective worlds, from the hardened criminal who draws the line at the sexual
abuse of random women to a supportive husband happy to be his wife’s anchor, a
subordinate driven by his social conditioning and others who rise above theirs.
The use of a solitary statistic on juvenile rapists at the
start of Mardaani 2 is misleading and
troubling though, and the text on screen in the end is shoddily written.
Another of Mardaani 2’s few faltering moments comes
in a TV interview Shivani gives. While the anchor’s conservatism mirrors many real-life journalists,
his silence in response to her defiance is unconvincing. Bullies do tend to be cowards, but it is just as true that when
they find themselves overshadowed in a debate, chauvinists tend to camouflage a
lack of substance with decibels or personal remarks, not acquiescence. For the
record, like the female producer listening to their conversation, I too teared
up at Shivani’s answer about the stress
and scrutiny, humiliation and hurt that every woman experiences.
Aided
by Monisha Baldawa’s concise editing, the tension does not let up for even a
second in Mardaani 2’s
economical one hour 45 minutes running time. John Stewart Eduri’s background score is perfectly compatible
with the storyline and Puthran
puts it to excellent use, not once
raising the volume or thrusting it into crucial silences, unlike the makers of
most Hindi thrillers. Sound designers Ganesh Gangadharan and Nihar Ranjan Samal
too seem intent on not sensationalising the unfolding crimes.
A heroine and a bad guy unusual for Hindi cinema, cracking
suspense, understated messaging that is woven into the characterisation,
top-notch performances by Mukerji and Vishal Jethwa who plays Sunny, and Puthran’s
no-frills storytelling style all add up to making Mardaani 2 a hugely entertaining, highly intelligent, polished
thriller. In terms of cinematic quality, 2019 has been one of the worst
years for Bollywood in a very long time. Mardaani 2 is
a timely reminder of how good this industry can be when it chooses not to
be weighed down by prejudice, market-driven compulsions and lazy formulae.
Rating (out
of 5 stars): 4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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105 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy:
