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.