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Friday, April 19, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD MONSOON SHOOTOUT
EDITOR'S PICK
'Monsoon Shootout': Shout-out for this shootout (Review By Subhash K.
Jha ; Rating: ***1/2)
Rain-splashed bloodied puddles of questioning, probing, searching emotional and
physical violence... "Monsoon Shootout" is a curious case of a potentially
routine cops-and-killer sanguinary saga given a certain fresh twist of
ambivalence by writing skills that know their "Dirty Harry" as closely as they
know "Ardh Satya".
There is a 'tadka' of circumstantial ambiguity, a twist of fate, if you will,
whereby a rookie policeman's 'rookie-rookie si zindagi' gets more unscheduled
excitement on his first assignment than he had bargained for.
A serial killer is on the prowl. And really, in how many ways can Nawazuddin be
cast as the psychotic outcast? It was a hammer in hand in "Raman Raghav", it's
an axe here. The slayings are staged stylishly in the slippery monsoon of Mumbai
when it's easy for the elusive to give the pursuant the slip.
This is exactly what the narrative does on us. Like Nawaz's Shiva, it repeatedly
gives us the slip, leaving us with unanswered questions just when the policeman
Adi (Vijay Varma, impressively callow and intense) corners the killer at
gunpoint. Repeatedly, and with incessant pounding at the plot's epicenter, the
narrative takes on a what-if tangent, creating a cat-and-mouse game of its own
between the camera and the audience.
It is an impressive performance, staged to seduce and please us, not always
hitting bull's eye but never losing sight of its target. There are energetic
sexual encounters, involving a migrant sex worker (Sreejita De) that convey the
desperation of a city on the edge, and a populace on the prowl.
"Monsoon Shootout" succeeds in gripping us by our collective jowls in spite of a
certain staleness in the plot, and a stiffness in the joints of the narrative.
The camera manned by Rajiv Ravi prowls through Mumbai's crowded monsoonal mayhem
with emphatic energy.
The first killing is staged with ‘festive' favour during the Ganpati visarjan.
And by ‘festive', I don't mean just the religious observance but also
international film festivals where such films make a mark before winding down
their journey to the banks of River Ganga.
"Monsoon Shootout" deserves a shout-out for its authentic view of the moral
ambivalence that a law enforcer must face during an ‘encounter'. The plot weaves
into tactile, tense but organically self-destructive situations of doom and
decay where the voice of the conscience is drowned in the din of decay of
deprivation.
Some of the moral dilemma, specially those involving the criminal's young
teenaged son (interesting juvenile newcomer Farhan Mohammad Hanif Shaikh) are
disturbing to the extreme. Director Amit Kumar doesn't hesitate from making hard
choices on behalf of his characters. Consequently, this dark blood-dimmed film
leaves us with a hollow feeling in our stomachs.
Life sucks. And Monsoon Shootout doesn't do anything to ease the pain.
Actress Geetanjali Thapa, who won the National Award
for her performance in "Liar's Dice" -- India's official entry for the 87th
Oscars -- says winning the accolade did not work like a "godmother's wand" in
her career. But she admits it helped to be a project "sifter".
Gearing up
for her new film, Onir's "Kuch Bheege Alfaaz", releasing on Friday, Geetanjali
says the prestigious award which she won in 2014 helped her get the kind of workRead More
Actor Vijay Varma, who is joining the team of "Gully Boys",
is excited about working with filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and actor Ranveer Singh.
"Working with Zoya Akhtar is like a dream come true. She is one of the
finest directors we have in the country and I am eagerly looking forward to
shoot this one. Also sharing screen space with the mighty Ranveer Singh is going
to be fun," Vijay said in a statement.
Last seen on-screen in "Monsoon
Shootout", Vijay will play a rapper in "Gully Boys", a story of four friends who
are local rappers in the midst of overcrowRead More
