Full marks to Kangana for her attempt, but nothing can salvage a jaded script

Everyone in Dhaakad is triggerhappy and mind you, they rarely miss a shot. There’s blood, gore, action, gunshots and characters with their own set of eccentricities, and everyone packs a punch on screen. But, the story appears punctured at several places and never really elevates to a point where you feel the impact it set out to create. Director Razneesh Razy Ghai introduces his protagonist Agent Agni (Kangana Ranaut) early on, though I still can’t wrap my head around that blonde look in the introductory scene.

Dhaakad revolves around Agni, a special agent with International Task

Force, delegated the task of eliminating an international human and arms trafficker, Rudraveer (Arjun Rampal). During this battle, her tragic childhood stands in front of her eyes more often that she’d expect. While Agni is at it, she unearths shocking truths about her tragedy and a link that connects her to Rudraveer.

At two hours and 10 minutes, the film looks rather stretched with a flashback sequence that repeats itself more number of times than you would dig into your bucket of popcorn. Ranaut once again puts her A-game on and never loses the grip on her character — fierce, feisty and fearless, yet vulnerable where she needs to be. She fights tough men all alone and for once, does not look juvenile, thanks to well-choreographed action sequences. There’s a dialogue addressed to Agni that says, “Iske dimaag ki tarah iska dil bhi khiska hua hai”, which invites quite a few claps and cheer.

Rampal, as a menacing baddie, is quite convincing. He mercilessly goes on a killing spree for reasons best known to him. A scene where he smears his face with blood after stabbing a guy multiple times sends chills down your spine. The climax fight between Rudraveer and Agni makes for quite a thrilling watch. Divya Dutta as Rohini, a badass character forced into trafficking as a child, stands out. Saswata Chatterjee as the handler and Sharib Hashmi, the agent working for him, in supporting parts, put up a great show. But, well etched-out characters like these are weaved together with a story that’s not even half as good as their parts. There are several loose ends that just don’t allow things to stick together and it all falls apart way too soon. The film, sadly, fails to do justice to their talent.

The director, who has co-written the story with Chintan Gandhi and Rinish Ravindra, with dialogues by Ritesh Shah, should have realised that a female-led action film couldn’t work just on that one premise. It needs an equally great story too. At many places, Dhaakad appears to be stuck in the ’80s and ’90s, with tropes of using a child as a shield to trace your enemy looking so stale.

Dhaakad is high on thrill, action and outstanding performances, but by the end of it, you wish half the attention was paid to the story and writing.