Review of बदलाPur (Badlapur)

Cast: Varun Dhawan (Raghu), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Liak), Huma Qureshi (Jhumli), Yami Gautam (Misha), Vinay Pathak (Harman), Divya Dutta (Shobha), Radhika Apte (Koko), Ashwini Kalsekar (Private Detective)

Direction: Sriram Raghavan

Produced by: Dinesh Vijan and Sunil Lulla

Written by: Sriram Raghavan and Arijit Biswas

Music: Sachin Jigar

Cinematography: Anil Mehta

Edited by: Pooja Ladha Surti

Production Company: Maddock Films

Distributed by: Eros International

Release Date: 20^th February, 2015

Duration: 135minutes

Language: Hindi

बदलाPur, Sriram Raghavan’s movie, a story of revenge. Its tagline says – “Don’t miss the beginning”, but I think, it should have been – “Don’t miss the end”. The last five minutes make the movie different from the usual revenge dramas. Definitely the style of presentation of Badlapur has been done in a different manner altogether. The movie has its own moments of darkness, grief, sadness etc. Kudos to Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Varun Dhawan for their performances. Yes, there are moments, when one gets in touch with Varun’s sadness, grief and inner turmoil. Also, there are moments when one ends up loving as well as hating Nawazuddin.

A Distraught Raghu

The movie begins with Misha (Yami Gautam) and her son becoming the target of unfortunate circumstances which occurred during a bank robbery. Liak (Nawazuddin) and Harman (Vinay Pathak) did the robbery together, threatened Misha and used her vehicle to flee. Misha’s resistance resulted in two deaths – hers as well as her son. Broken and grief stricken Raghav aka Raghu, Misha’s husband (Varun Dhawan - a successful ad professional), finds it really difficult to cope up with the unfortunate incidents. Liak asks Harman to run away with the money. Liak is nabbed but he doesn’t open his mouth about the partner’s name and whereabouts. Raghu himself goes to meet him, but is not successful in extracting the information from him. Liak appears to be harmless, but puts the blame of the murder on his accomplice without actually disclosing the name. Raghu chooses to go to Jhumli (Huma Quershi -Liak’s girl friend) and exploits her to get the information, but all efforts in vain. Finally Liak is convicted for the bank robbery and gets punishment for 20 years in prison. Frustrated Raghu, in his failure to understand the real culprit of his family’s murder, shifts to a place called Badlapur. And then the wait starts. The movie moves further to explore what happens to these characters after 15 years. 

Liak at his best...

Is Raghu able to understand, who is the real culprit? Does he take his revenge or is he able to forgive the culprit along with the passage of time? How does Liak move forward? What happens to Harman, Liak’s partner-in-crime? Does Liak get back his money from Harman and also Jhumli in his life? Watch the movie to explore the unfolding of this revenge and transformation saga.

Plus Points: Superb performances by Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Varun Dhawan. Varun has experimented with a different genre and he has excelled in it. Nawazuddin is simply brilliant, what a body language. Huma is also very good. Radhika Apte as Koko (Harman’s wife) and Divya Dutta are also good.

Violence erupts only intermittently in spite of the fact that the name of movie is Badlapur.

The song Jeena Jeena by Atif Aslam is too good.

The last few frames are also very good.

Minus Points: Lot of scenes are inserted without any specific logic. Raghu establishing physical relationship with Jhumli: How can a man who lost his wife and kid in an unfortunate incident get the strength to humiliate another woman, that too within few days? What is the justification of Sriram for this scene? How can Raghu assume that he can torture Jhumli in this manner and extract information from her, who already is a prostitute and who might have suffered a lot earlier? Why did Raghu choose to deal with women badly, and what was the logic behind Raghu getting intimate with Shobha (Divya Dutta, a NGO activist)? I wish, Yami’s screen time was a bit longer. A detective Ashwini was introduced in the plot but her contribution in trying to get the details about the killer were limited to short scenes (rest of her job was handled by Raghu himself).

Badlapur, is definitely not meant for everybody. It is a pretty descent effort by Sriram in this genre of action-crime-drama movies. If you like such intense dark films, you might anticipate keenly for the story to unravel.

बदलाPur, a revenge saga with a difference. Watch it for Nawazuddin and Varun’s performances.

Rating: 2.5/5 (Average+)