Brutal, and not in a good way

Satyameva Jayate is the kind of film that has more flags fluttering in slow motion than believable characters; more ridiculous plot twists than honest cops; and more spoken Sanskrit than you’d hear at the Akshardham temple.

John Abraham plays Vir, a scud missile of a man who goes on a vigilante spree in Mumbai, ritualistically murdering crooked cops. He traps them, subjects them to at least two minutes of poorly recited poetry and douses them in kerosene or alcohol (whichever’s more easily available) and flicks a lit match in their direction.

DCP Shivansh, the man tasked with hunting him down, is played by the great Manoj Bajpayee, braving considerable embarrassment for what must have been a very large paycheque. Every word out of his mouth is louder than the last, perhaps to cloak the fact that he’s talking in blank verse.

When Vir and Shivansh speak to each other on the phone, it sounds more like a poetry slam than a face-off.

Shivansh has been picked for this investigation because he is good, and honest. Sensitivity is optional.

This is a brutal film, the sort that lingers over moments of violence long after it could have moved on. The background score is headache-inducing. All this is made worse by the inept filmmaking of Milap Milan Zaveri. The only competent shot is the item number.

Worse still, it is an irresponsible film. In this India, killing ‘bad’ policemen can be considered a form of justice; corruption is a capital offence, but murder is not.

This more than anything else makes Satyameva Jayate unwatchable.