Kashyap’s legendary knock-out punch
MUKKABAAZ Direction: Anurag Kashyap Actors: Vineet Singh, Jimmy Shergill, Zoya Hussain Rating:
Apassionate but untrained boxer is brawling with some ruffians on a crowded street as a mute girl watches him from a rooftop. There is pain, lust, aggression. Will there be love?
Boxing is not a game for gritty young Shravan (Vineet Singh). It’s his ticket to a better life, one that offers respect. He calls himself Uttar Pradesh’s Mike Tyson and idolises Rocky. This is the one thing he’s good at. But he’s way past the age at which he should have ‘made it’.
Like most sports bodies in India, the UP federation is cracking under political pressure. Bareilly politician and mobster Bhagwan Das Mishra (Jimmy Shergill) makes and breaks careers. Unfortunately, the watchful girl (Sunaina, played by an enigmatic Zoya Hussain) is his niece and that might kill Shravan’s chances before he’s even begun.
The corrupt, malfunctioning system is so completely internalised that even you, as a viewer, are startled by Shravan’s idealism. He’s angry, aimless and won’t conform. He’s a misfit at home and a misfit out in the world and this angst is rendered beautifully by director Anurag Kashyap — as when he talks about ‘passion’ and his electrician father hears ‘fashion’ and launches into a lecture.
Mukkabaaz (The Brawler) is achingly funny and intensely satirical. And as it unfolds it gets increasingly darker. Players who don’t understand the difference between medicines and narcotic drugs, who are desperate to win because it would mean getting a government job.
Kashyap’s humour is audacious to the point of making you gasp. He sets the scene so you are in sympathy with the ‘system’, and then demands that you ask yourself why.
Yet, interestingly, love remains at the heart of this tale. It’s a raw, primal kind of love, but recognisable nonetheless. Shergill is melodramatic in parts, but largely effective. Hussain uses her expressive face, particularly her eyes, to marvellous effect. She is supported by a dramatic background score.
Over 156 minutes, expect to fall in love yourself, with this thickheaded brawler with the open heart. Mukkabaaz is a great film to start the year on.