Badlapur

The conventional way of placing an antagonist and protagonist gets an amazing new interpretation in the latest Varun Dhawan – Nawazuddin Siddiquie starrer Badlapur. Sriram Raghavan who is well known for his dark themes has created another top notch thriller in the form of Badlapur which thrills you with its minimalistic treatment and amazes you with its freshness in characterization. With riveting performances from each and every character in the movie, Badlapur is one unique experience you should not miss.

Raghu works in an ad agency and one day his wife and son gets murdered during the chaos in between a bank robbery. Among the two thieves one gets caught and the other one escapes. The movie basically tells us the patient fifteen year long wait of Raghu to find the murderer and take revenge for his lose. How he does that is what this captivating movie talking about.

I have just briefed the basic intro of the movie as a story line in order to keep more for you guys when you watch it. What is exciting about this Sriram Raghavan movie is that it just engrosses you with its realistic treatment for almost 3/4^th of its run time. After going through that phase of refreshingly interpreted typical revenge pattern, we get to see a segment that is quite fresh and I must appreciate the story which is based on Massimo Carlotto’s novel (I don’t know the name of the book) for that. The feelings we have for the hero and villain at the end of the journey is what makes this movie a terrific one.

On screen I would say casting Nawazuddin Siddiquie as Liaq was probably the best decision of the movie. The way the actor has conceived the character is so intimidating that you will unknowingly wish that Raghu finds out the truth at the earliest. Liaq at the same time has his own share of dreams and frustrations which was also portrayed nicely by the actor. Well Varun Dhwan was mind blowing in his depiction of Raghu. A few past shots were there which showed the usual Varun we have seen. Then this transformation to that moody angry Raghu was a really convincing one. And that quench for revenge was so perfect that when the Liaq tells Raghu about his mental state, we do feel some sympathy for Raghu. The other females in the cast including Yami Gautam, Divya Dutta, Huma Qureshi and Radhika Apte did their roles perfectly. Govind Mishra and Vinay Pathak were also quite good in their characters.

Sriram Raghavan after his dull thriller Agent Vinod makes a staggering comeback with a story that suits his style of film making. I was so astonished to see him creating scenes with such simplicity yet conveying a thrilling interface for the viewer. The dialogues were really good. The screenplay builds the revenge nicely and also questions the final result in a peculiar way. Cinematographer has shown some refreshing frames. Edits were good. The songs from Sachin-Jigar were really nice. Action was also realistic.

Overall Badlapur is a must watch film that kind of tells us that we can still narrate plane revenge in many different ways by adding fresh subplots. The rating for Badlapur is 4/5 and thumbs up. Stupendous performances and superb story.