Vadh Movie Review: A Timely Masterpiece
by Hirak Dasgupta, Associate Editor
What does a lover of good cinema look for in a movie? High-voltage acting, immaculate story-telling, a good pace (because we are all too busy nowadays!), splendid camera work and superlative direction. Vadh has all that and some more. Warning: spoilers ahead!
As the story goes, Shambhunath Mishra is a retired teacher struggling hard to make ends meet as he reels under the burden of two separate loans — one taken from a bank and the other from a rather dubious source. And the plot of the movie revolves around the latter. It so happens that Pandit Ji, as he is lovingly called by his students, had to take out the loans to send his ingrate son abroad. While the son has now settled in his cozy life as an NRI with a family of his own, the old parents are left in the lurches with the lenders buzzing all over them. A big chunk of Pandit Ji’s savings is chewed up by the bank and the bulk of the remainder is gorged upon by the loan shark Prajapati Pandey, Shambhunath owes money to.
The fiendish Pandey resorts to noxious means to wriggle the old man out of money until he oversteps and draws the ire of the seemingly innocuous teacher. Thrown in the mix is a shady cop, Shambhunath’s god-fearing wife, who can’t even stand the sight of a dead rat, and a local goon and MLA known to all as Dada. All in all Vadh is a fast-burner with all the makings of an edgy thriller that can fill your weekend evening with some quality entertainment that is bound to stay with you for quite a while. But beneath the layer of a carefully crafted plotline is a very real story, something that is bound to resonate with the great majority of Indians.
A few months back I tried to run a story in some of the leading Indian dailies only to be rejected by shit-scared editors who didn’t want to mess with the politico of Bengal. It was about loan sharking and it came at a time when my city had seen a string of loan-related suicides. Loan sharking is a huge problem in India. It is like a flesh eating virus, chewing into the very tapestry of this nation, stealing lives and decimating families. And this virus has no visible antidote. It grows unchecked in the backwaters of every city, every town and every village in India. It certainly is a huge problem in my state of West Bengal.
While charging exorbitant interest rates on lent money is a crime in India and punishable by jail term, the law is rarely enforced. More often than not the sufferer comes from a forgotten class with zero access to legal recourse. The less I talk of the role of the police in such cases the better it is. Vadh strikes at the very heart of this bane.
How do you deal with loan sharks when they want no less than your life?
Do you slay the demon and uphold your right to live as a free man?
These are some of the questions Vadh makes you ponder. It is a brave foray into a hitherto uncharted territory of cinematic story-telling, or so I believe. While the premise of ravaged villagers rising up against tyrannical overlords has been explored in Indian cinema, may be a tad too often, tales of the urban hapless in such gory details as in Vadh is only now becoming the staple of Bollywood.
Sanjay Mishra is brilliant as ever with his deadpan delivery and stoic reserve. He emotes only when he has to and does so with such effect as to drive a stake right through your heart. I won’t be surprised if this role turns out to be his magnum opus in a long career chasing mostly comedic roles, which, dare I say, have done little justice to his talent. Neena Gupta has been on a roll since Badhaai Ho and she matches up to Mishra every time she shares screen with him. Manav Vij has been a revelation for Hindi cinema really. I have been following him since Udta Punjab and he never fails to impress, even in drab productions such as Laal Singh Chaddha. Saurabh Sachdeva is good (he is an acting coach after all!) and the rest of the cast are okay — nothing to write home about.
Vadh’s success goes to show that good films will continue to thrive even in the midst of bombastic Bollywood and Tollywood travesties. People — lovers of good cinema — will seek out stories of the India that lies beyond the glitz and glamor of tinsel town.
Ratings:
Acting: 4.5/5
Story: 4/5
Direction: 4/5
Camerawork: 3.5/5
