Movie Review – Raid – by Suhel Johar
RAID Impresses And Engages Only In Bits And Parts, Not A Compelling Watch Though!
The biopic mania in Bollywood continues with Raid. Of late every other film is either
based on a real life character or a true life dramatic event. Raid directed by Raj Kumar Gupta (who
has earlier made films like Aamir, No One Killed Jessica, Ghanchakkar) relies on his firm footing
as a man of consequence to pitch itself as a tribute to the IT department's
unsung heroes.
The story of Raid,
a period crime thriller, is inspired from a true event involving a brave and
incorruptible Income Tax Officer Sharad Prasad Pandey who raided the house of a
businessman Sardar Indra Singh in the year 1981 and seized cash and gold worth
Rs 1.6 crore. This raid ran for 18 hours and 45 people in it were constantly
sitting just to count the notes.
Ajay Devgn plays Amay Patnaik, an income tax officer
known for his integrity. He's a stickler for rules and is someone who has been
transferred for more times than he cares to count. He gets posted to Lucknow
and fate brings him the biggest anonymous tip of his life on a platter. It's so
hot that it could bring down the empire of the local MLA, Rameshwar Singh
(Saurabh Shukla) fondly known as Tauji. He acts on his instincts and makes sure
he has a cast-iron case before making his move. He's thwarted initially in his
efforts but later his source comes true even amidst the chaos and he's able to
perform his duties to the fullest, bringing in the richest haul from an IT raid
of that era in the process. Ileana D’Souza plays the insignificant character of
Mrs. Nita Patnaik who actually has no role to play in the story and make an
impact.
The film is impressive and engaging in parts but the
film in totality sadly fails to make it a compelling watch. The director is
unable to recreate the inhuman, humiliating and abusive treatment that our
officers received when the raid was conducted. The film steers clear from any
of the details and heavily focuses on the shock value of the raid. The director
in his attempt to set up his hero's character spends too much time at the
beginning while you wish that the film would take off. The film picks up pace
once the raid begins and the graph goes up for a while. But it soon tumbles
down as it becomes a predictable fare of right versus wrong.
Although Ajay Devgn and Saurabh Shukla get well written
roles but the same cannot be said about the other characters. Besides the
protagonist and the antagonist, there is a Ramu Kaka, the quintessential house
help in the eighties. There is also an eager to please corrupt officer called
Lallan. There is a delirious grandmother who lands with the funniest lines and
moments in the film. Shocked at the amount of cash and gold tumbling out during
the raid, she complains, how her sons, despite being so wealthy, never got her
operated for her kidney stones problem. These light-hearted moments, on one
hand, work very well for the film, to bring in some amount of humour and ease
to an otherwise grim subject. On the other hand, the continuous humour quotient
dilutes the heroic efforts of our officials and clearly works as an advantage
for the film.
In fact, in its attempt to be a popular film, Raid ends up plugging a lazily written
love track and songs that have hardly any meaning. Also the constant repetition
of the scenes made the film cumbersome. The biggest drawback of this film is
that when there is a superstar like Ajay Devgn in the film, who has been
accepted by the audience as a super hero, the hope is that he will do some
miracles in climax! Our star system is revolves on this heroism, but it becomes
difficult to accept a super hero as an ordinary scared person! The most
hilarious scene in the film comes towards the climax when they show an angry
mob thirsting to lynch the crusading income tax officer for doing his job; but
instead of communicating the imminent potent danger, we have this enigmatic
hero reminiscing about his attractive wife with a soppy song playing in the
background about values and valour.
Like his last film Ghanchakkar
director Raj Kumar Gupta has failed to deliver the goods and seems confused at
quite a few places about how to move ahead with the story. Story by Ritesh Shah
and screenplay by Ritesh Shah and Raj Kumar Gupta is weak and manipulative.
Dialogues by Ritesh Shah are quite effective. The cinematography by Alphonse
Roy is fantastic. Editing by Bodhaditya
Banerjee is good. The music by Amit Trivedi and Tanishk Bagchi is inconsistent
and seems forced just to make it more palatable to a larger audience. Background
score by Tanishk is a lot of din.
Performancewise, Ajay Devgn carries a dead pan
expression in most parts and does as expected of him. Ileana D’Cruz has nothing
much to do except look pretty. Although Saurabh Shukla is in a role that he has
played before he plays his part with conviction. Amit Sial as Lallan is noticeable
and makes his presence felt. Pushpa Joshi as Saurabh Shukla’s mother is very
funny.
On the whole, watch Raid if you’re a diehard fan of Ajay Devgn though you lose nothing
if you choose to skip the film.
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