Badlapur- Hindi Movie Review
Star cast - Varun
Dhawan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi, Yami Gautam, Vinay Pathak, Divya
Dutta and Radhika Apte
Written & directed by - Sriram Raghavan,
Arijit Biswas
Genre - Crime/Thriller
Movie review by
- Aditi Mukherjee
Movie score
- 4 out of 5
When
you have everything one moment and nothing the other, reflexes like shock,
grief and desperation are natural and expected. So are the various coping
mechanisms. But when the life of a loved one is cut short suddenly, that too by
way of murder, there is no stronger need than that of revenge. What greater
desperation could there be than not knowing - who did it?
Writer/Director
Sriram Raghavan after Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar, has once again proved
his mettle in the genre of dark revenge thriller. Through Badlapur, Varun
Dhawan as Raghu has finally launched himself as a serious actor and at par with
his contemporaries in Bollywood. Nawazuddin Siddiqui known for his superb acting
capabilities has yet again excelled as a bank robber and a murderer. The supporting
cast including Huma Qureshi, Yami Gautam, Divya Dutta, Vinay Pathak and Radhika
Apte are just right in their roles in a plot that briskly build the tempo towards
a twisted and an unexpected end.
Varun
Dhawan is a happy and successful creative lead of a Pune based ad agency whose
life takes a u-turn when his wife (Yami Gautam) and child are murdered by bank
robbers. While one of the robbers (Vinay Pathak) manages to escape with all the
money, the other (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is caught and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment
even though he never really accepts his involvement in either the murder or the
robbery. Frustrated at his inability to identify the real killer, and to get
over his loss, Varun Dhawan starts an inconspicuous new life in the small town of
Badlapur. However, fate again puts him back
in action when Divya Dutta (an NGO worker) arrives at his doorstep to inform
him of Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s slow death from cancer.
Badlapur
tickles many emotions of a troubled mind. From a man desperate to find and
punish the killer of his wife and child, to a woman willing to have sex with a stranger
so her husband’s life is spared, the movie has it all. When the tickle turns
into a scratch and ultimately into a dangerous wound, is as difficult to point
out as it is to understand when Varun Dhawan’s character becomes a monstrous
killer from a mourning husband and father.
For
a crisp 135 minutes, the smaller flaws of the movie can be conveniently ignored.
Be careful for there are some graphic
violent and sexual scenes in Badlapur.
My
recommendation: This is a must watch for lovers of new age cinema. Whether it
is Varun Dhawan’s rage or Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s abhorrent smirk, the movie will
make you smile even at its darkest moments.