Revenge is a dish that works best when served bold! - Director Sriram Raghavan's no-holds-barred approach successfully accomplishes to arrest the viewer's psyche, offering thrills which pushes the envelope of noir genre in Bollywood.Each time I watched a Raghavan movie, I was moved by his quirky style of interpreting crime or revenge. Badlapur, which is apparently based on true events, is the director's buyback of fame after the debacle of the damp squib, Agent Vinod.
Quote vocal in its tag-line, "Dont Miss the beginning", the first 10 minutes of Badlapur just blows off your mind.In no time,the world before Raghu(Varun Dhawan) shockingly comes to an end when his wife(played by Yami Gautam) and kid are killed in a bank robbery gone kaput. The prime accused,Laik(Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who convinces the jury that his partner was the actual killer,is sentenced for 15 years while his partner ,Harman(Vinay Pathak) absconds with the hefty sum of robbed money , but is within Laik's radar.
In a typical nod to the African proverb,"The Axe forgets, but the Tree remembers", Raghu uses all possible means to reach out to to the killer and seek revenge , not in one shot, but in phase by phase. Raghavan employs some interesting twists and turns to keep the heat on, without bringing the cushion of morality into the game.The narration is crisp, the atmos perfectly gels with the gloomy tone of the film and you have some vignettes from the life of the jail inmates that ring a deja vu with respect to his ace thriller, Ek Haseena Thi.No doubt, Badlapur has its elements of gore in plenty but it is counter- balanced by emotional touch points and the palpable loss owing to bereavement Raghavan maneuvers the drama with razor-sharp dialogues and a terrific background score , but somehow the story degenerates into a tale of redemption with an unsettling climax that echoes the futility of revenge-fueled violence.
As a man whose is consumed and nurtured by vendetta, Varun Dhawan immaculately conveys the simmering rage and intensity while his character undergoes a chronological transformation from being a cool guy to a middle-aged man. Not only does he camouflage the looks , he very well manages to shift his demeanor.His nemesis,Laik ,played by the superbly talented Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a freak to watch out for.Shifting his traits from being conniving,loathsome to vulnerability, Nawaz pitches in with a nicely calibrated performance.
In the complex trapezoid of the vengeance game,Raghavan assembles the four femme fatales who spring in genuine and compelling performances.Of the lot,Huma Qureshi is first-rate as the bar dancer,Jhimli, who happens to Laik's love interest.The character has a certain mystery that adds to the allure.In one of the deliciously striking moments, Laik requests Jhimli to say something lewd and naughty for a 'turn- on' and its evident from the chemistry of these characters how much you root for them! Radhika Apte comes as a surprise pack as she gets her big moment to shine in a wildly salacious sequence.Divya Dutta and Yami Gautam don't get much of scope,while Vinay Pathak,Murli Sharma and Zakir Hussain sparkle in their respective cameos. A word of praise for the immensely capable Kumud Mishra ,playing the greedy pot-bellied cop, who verbally boasts of 3 by-pass surgeries and 2 promotions to his credit.
Dark,edgy and brutally violent, Badlapur works for its twisted characters, wry humor and tight editing. This one deserves a full swallow, but yes ,u are certain to get hiccups!
Quote vocal in its tag-line, "Dont Miss the beginning", the first 10 minutes of Badlapur just blows off your mind.In no time,the world before Raghu(Varun Dhawan) shockingly comes to an end when his wife(played by Yami Gautam) and kid are killed in a bank robbery gone kaput. The prime accused,Laik(Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who convinces the jury that his partner was the actual killer,is sentenced for 15 years while his partner ,Harman(Vinay Pathak) absconds with the hefty sum of robbed money , but is within Laik's radar.
In a typical nod to the African proverb,"The Axe forgets, but the Tree remembers", Raghu uses all possible means to reach out to to the killer and seek revenge , not in one shot, but in phase by phase. Raghavan employs some interesting twists and turns to keep the heat on, without bringing the cushion of morality into the game.The narration is crisp, the atmos perfectly gels with the gloomy tone of the film and you have some vignettes from the life of the jail inmates that ring a deja vu with respect to his ace thriller, Ek Haseena Thi.No doubt, Badlapur has its elements of gore in plenty but it is counter- balanced by emotional touch points and the palpable loss owing to bereavement Raghavan maneuvers the drama with razor-sharp dialogues and a terrific background score , but somehow the story degenerates into a tale of redemption with an unsettling climax that echoes the futility of revenge-fueled violence.
As a man whose is consumed and nurtured by vendetta, Varun Dhawan immaculately conveys the simmering rage and intensity while his character undergoes a chronological transformation from being a cool guy to a middle-aged man. Not only does he camouflage the looks , he very well manages to shift his demeanor.His nemesis,Laik ,played by the superbly talented Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a freak to watch out for.Shifting his traits from being conniving,loathsome to vulnerability, Nawaz pitches in with a nicely calibrated performance.
In the complex trapezoid of the vengeance game,Raghavan assembles the four femme fatales who spring in genuine and compelling performances.Of the lot,Huma Qureshi is first-rate as the bar dancer,Jhimli, who happens to Laik's love interest.The character has a certain mystery that adds to the allure.In one of the deliciously striking moments, Laik requests Jhimli to say something lewd and naughty for a 'turn- on' and its evident from the chemistry of these characters how much you root for them! Radhika Apte comes as a surprise pack as she gets her big moment to shine in a wildly salacious sequence.Divya Dutta and Yami Gautam don't get much of scope,while Vinay Pathak,Murli Sharma and Zakir Hussain sparkle in their respective cameos. A word of praise for the immensely capable Kumud Mishra ,playing the greedy pot-bellied cop, who verbally boasts of 3 by-pass surgeries and 2 promotions to his credit.
Dark,edgy and brutally violent, Badlapur works for its twisted characters, wry humor and tight editing. This one deserves a full swallow, but yes ,u are certain to get hiccups!
