The USP of this flick is the subject it elects to elaborate upon - that of the world largest democracy, its effectiveness (or ineffectiveness?) combined with the way it chooses to deliver in the most austere way. It talks about the utopian democratic notions , its flaws in operation or the bureaucratic clutter that runs it, without being preachy eyed or bearing the stamp of a left liberal art house. Infused with some pretty dark humour all along, the makers have managed to tackle a downright serious topic with a subtle and non-dramatic chronicle. Newton is about a young, honest and self-righteous man Newton Kumar who's been commissioned to conduct electoral polling in a tension filled Naxalite region in Chhattisgarh as the presiding officer. The real challenge for him compared to the often warned about communist guerrillas would be the tribes who exist inconsequentially in some godforsaken land in Chhattisgarh with the feeblest idea of an elected representative for them or the system overall for that matter! The plight of tribes, their ignorance, the vainness of naxalism movement, the apathy of security forces or the publicity hungry officials are put in pretty glum acerbity and dark humour. The cleverness of the writer/director manifests in the way they've build the characters with a built in caste interpretation without actually divulging it openly , the dalit titular guy, the middle class high caste army man or the high class IPS officer each with their own views or indifferences in the framework. However the brilliance of the entire proceedings is in not letting either of these characters to be right or wrong, or no pretentious attempt in finding the solutions or making statements (as in the case of recent Mersal ). A mixed metaphor in ways more than one, what works most for newton is the casting - Rajkumar Rao nailing the title role to perfection as the idealistic eccentric presiding officer with his nuances, speeches or those nerdy eye blinks in between. He has become the sort of go to guy for indie/independent movie makers of late one should say. However it's Pankaj Tripathy as Aatma Singh, the cynical security official who steals the show from Newton with his own crooked views on the system while patrolling the dense Dandakaranya jungles hunting the Maoists or pushing around the villagers.
