Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar

Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar from Dibakar Banerjee goes through different sorts of treatments. The opening single-shot scene of the movie itself was a mind-blowing one, and with that sequence, Dibakar makes sure that you are not going to look into your mobile phones while watching this survival thriller. Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is basically a story that deals with the misuse of power by those who control the system. But rather than following the usual tragic way, Dibakar chooses to follow the happy ending track but makes sure that the journey looked genuine.

Sandeep Walia, aka Sandy, and Satinder Dahiya, aka Pinky, are our central characters here. Sandy holds a key position in a reputed bank, and Pinky is a suspended police officer in the Hariyana police department. One day Pinky is assigned a duty by his senior to pick Sandy from a restaurant and take her to a place to meet someone. But soon, he realizes that it was all a setup. Now they both are running for their lives. Why was Sandy so important to the bank, what Pinky and Sandy did to survive, and what all they had to go through is what we see in Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar.

The tempo of the narrative is different at different points. It’s not like we are seeing them running for their lives all the time. You are sort of getting to see different shades of a survival drama. At first, it is in that extremely dark space where you witness shootouts and stuff. Then you have them faking their identities to survive, and the movie somewhere takes a lighter tone. Then the smart aspect of the survival instinct comes into the script. And then you have that do-or-die scenario. This pitch shift of the treatment feels very gentle, and Dibakar uses the silences to give us space to understand these characters whose past isn’t really given much prominence.

The story here has two characters from diametrically opposite lifestyles. At one point, when Sandeep explains the gravity of the situation by counting the number of zeroes in the scam, Pinky asks her about the way his class of people is treated or looked at by them. By making a female character the center of attraction, Dibakar and writer Varun Grover uses the premise to look at the male ego from different levels. One can see Pinky transforming gradually from being a judgmental guy to a more understanding one during the course of the event. Even the bank manager is interested only in taking advantage of Sandeep. The way the final escape unfolds kind of feels like a metaphorical dig at the society, and the way the edits presented that part of the movie made it all the more entertaining. Anil Mehta’s cinematography had some memorable frames, and the visual treatment and the locations matched the emotional graph of each scene. Dibakar Banerjee also plays with the sound design to achieve realism. In the dance sequence, one can hear Pinky panting, and somewhere it plays a key role in making the whole film look authentic.

When it comes to the performance, Arjun Kapoor manages to accentuate the rough edges of Pinky in a very convincing manner. And the movie is somewhere a transition story for that character, and you can sense Pinky’s despair and anger slightly, giving way for empathy and courage. The body language he has applied here definitely helps him in not being Arjun Kapoor on screen. Parineeti Chopra, on the other hand, is dealing with two shades of her character. One is that clueless and vulnerable woman, and the other one is the street-smart one who wants to escape from the situation. Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta as the uncle and aunty, were hilarious. Jaideep Ahlawat as the police officer, is pretty cool and that surgical strike dialogue between him and Raghubir Yadav in the climax cracked me up.

The rawness and uniqueness in Dibakar Banerjee’s craft are visible in Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. The movie offers a delightful experience for those who enjoy subtlety in presentation with the writing that touches upon many shades of human behavior. Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is a well-reworked version of a familiar cat and mouse game set in a contemporary space.