Film: Mardaani
Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Tahir Bhasin, Jisshu Sengupta
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Pradeep Sarkar’s last effort with Rani-Abhishek-Konkana, ‘Laga Chunari Mein Daag’ was a disaster at the BO but his ‘Parineeta’ with Vidya Balan is still remembered fondly. So this new effort, a YRF production, eponymously titled ‘Mardaani’ with Rani Mukherjee essaying the role of a renegade cop who goes all out to root out the evil of human trafficking (that Nagesh Kukkunoor’s ‘Lakshmi’ so disconcertingly brought out), has enough curiosity value to get the audience into the theatres-at least for the first few days.
And with the marketing campaign harping on those machismo spewing dialogues and to-hell-with-the-system fortitude, it did seem like there was a little too much ado about this lady-cop offering. ‘Singham’ and its afterlife ‘…Returns’ were brutish cop-outs, this one, fortunately is not. There’s no dearth of fractious events or facile conflicts here.
Though based on well-researched facts, the narrative chooses to dig in deep, into the muddle of the mafia in its bid to give the home lead something much bigger to chew on (considering her earlier escapades into solo territory did not reap as much dividends as expected). So this film is obviously designed to give Rani’s almost defunct career a boost and maybe even win her a few recognizable awards.
‘Mardaani’ has Rani Mukherjee essaying the role of a fierce, fearless cop, Shivani Shivaji Rao, Inspector Mumbai Crime Branch who takes up the case of a missing girl, Pyari who appears to have become a victim of the human trafficking network. Shivani has a husband (Jisshu Sengupta) and a niece, Meera, and a family bond strong enough to make her vulnerable to threats.
How she unearths the nexus between the Mafia kingpin Walt (Tahir Bhasin) and the human-trafficking network in the by lanes of Delhi- where she traces the missing girl to, forms the main track of the story.
Director Pradeep Sarkar helms the film in typical fashion giving his heroine Rani ample scope to embody the character she plays with a fierce investiture that makes her look larger than life. But only just. Rani is without make-up, minus the aviators of a Singham or Chulbul Pandey and is not given to breaking into song and dance at the sight of a handsome male. It’s only when her young friend, Pyari, goes missing that she sets out to ferret the truth.
And the words she utters when in dramatic conflicts with the villains are sharp and punchy. There’s no bombast here but she is still much more than just a regular cop doing her duty. She even mouths dialogues that encourage lawlessness amongst defenders of the law and in her eagerness to find the missing girl, has several confrontations that show her off as strong and defiant. She doesn’t do a ‘Singham’ but even so, is not as realistically drawn as could have been.
Rani’s strong performance keeps the interest going, Tahir plays Walt with a resoluteness that is becoming and Artur Zurawski’s cine capture makes it all look edgy. Editor Sanjib Dutta adds to the interest with his swift edits. Pradeep Sarkar’s helming and Gopi Puthran’s script could have done with a little more sharpness though. Especially with that heavy melodrama at the final act…Even so, this is a good, solid and reasonably satisfying outing to aim for this weekend.
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