Ram Singh Charlie is a movie that talks about the artist inside someone. It ultimately shows you the nonmaterialistic wealth an artist achieves from the relentless pursuit to be able to perform. Co-written and directed by Nitin Kakkar, Ram Singh Charlie is a fiesta of optimism planted in an extremely real world where nothing is perfect and rarely anyone understands the excitement of a true artist.
Ram Singh aka Charlie, our central protagonist is now a Rickshaw Walla in Kolkata. He and his family comprising of his wife and young son used to work with a circus company called Jango Circus. Like any other circus company, Jango also couldn’t survive the test of time and all the employees were laid off. How Ram Singh nurtures his passion to perform through this extremely difficult time is what we get to see here.
There is an exhilarating and cheerful two minutes at the beginning of the movie leading up to the title where we see Ram Singh running on the streets of Kolkata with his Rickshaw and cheerfully handling the kids who were with him. The visuals and the pacing were such that you will immediately get hooked onto the movie. What I loved about the movie was that it never tries to play it safe. Having seen a pile of feel-good dramas, I was able to sense what would eventually save Ram Singh when he stands clueless. But instead of giving a happy closure to the movie through an unreal optimistic moment, writers Nitin Kakkar, Sharib Hashmi, and Raghav Dutt decides to place it in a rough reality.
The writing of Ram Singh Charlie is trying to tap into that extremely personal space of an artist. There is a lovely scene in the movie where Ram Singh thanks Charlie after a performance for letting him understand where his actual happiness is. By throwing constant hurdles on Ram Singh, the movie wasn’t becoming tragic at all as we get to see our hero’s clarity and vision about the purpose of his performance. He wishes to enjoy being Charlie in front of people and whenever a compromise is happening in that process, he refuses to concur. The cinematography of the movie done by Subranshu Das and Madhav Salunke was wonderful. The visuals had a major role in marking the character in our minds and it was done perfectly. The cuts had a nice rhythm to its credit to keep us invested.
Kumud Mishra is impeccable as Ram Singh Charlie. The liberated feel he expresses when he puts on the makeup of Charlie was heartwarming. In one particular scene he says that, even though he was being jovial in front of all, deep down, he wasn’t really happy. The performance of Kumud Mishra effectively communicated that suffocation of Ram Singh. Divya Dutta as the supportive wife performed her part neatly. Salima Raza was memorable as the Circus owner.
Ram Singh Charlie is a feel-good movie that has the texture of a tragedy. Well, that makes it all the more real. The creative satisfaction of an artist is a difficult one to articulate through words and this movie somehow manages to do that to a satisfying extent. With a superb performance from its leading man Kumud Mishra, Ramsingh Charlie has enough in it to move you.
With a superb performance from its leading man Kumud Mishra, Ramsingh Charlie has enough in it to move you.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
