Tedious tale of assassination
It’s quite obvious from the run of play here that Remy Kohli’s assassination cum courtroom drama is inspired by western ideas (garnered from TV shows I am sure) about the practice of justice. It throws in English phrases like ‘opposing counsels sidebar’ without realising that in the Indian courtrooms such westernised wordplay doesn’t even seem real. But hey! that’s not the basis for the criticism of this earnest though foolhardy attempt at exposing the justice delivery system in India.
The commoner by the name of Kuldip Patwal (Deepak Dobriyal) claims he can’t remember what happened at the time of the assassination of the anglicised Chief Minister Varun Chadha (Parvin Dabas) of Bharatsar state. But he was at the sight of the tragedy and his fingerprints were found on the gun that was used for the assassination. He also claims that he didn’t do it to his lawyer, Parduman Shahpuri (Gulshan Devaiah), who is only too glad to land such a pro-bono effort that can further enhance his do-gooder image. Such contradicting statements of the accused don’t matter much when the intention is to show the politicians in a bad light. Remy Kohli draws out a case in the courts while devising back stories that only feels out of sync with the goings on in the courtroom.
There’s back and forth regarding internecine party politics and rival netas aiming to occupy the chair while tragedies keep befalling the lone aam aadmi who is valiantly struggling to make his life more worthwhile. The narrative in fact runs out of ideas and in order to make the ending seem twisty, adds a post climax segment that appears like an afterthought and nullifies everything that came before it. There’s absolutely no logic to that and it seems like an appendage that would have been better cut off at the editing table.
Writers Remy Kohli and Rahul Ramchandani might have started off with a credible idea but lose the plot along the way – in their effort to cram in as many injustices against the lone common man as possible. Unemployment, scams, police harassment, political gundaism, caste reservations, communal flare-ups all find place in this diatribe against the corrupt, vile politician. Even the actors seem out of sync with what’s happening in their reel world.
The writers also don’t seem to know much about the systems of law in India. The assassinated CM’s wife is shown as the public prosecutor aiming to send the accused to the gallows. There’s no attempt to get her to recuse herself from the case in the interests of fair play. Dobriyal goes overboard trying to show off his acting chops but it doesn’t seem real. Certainly, this is not a film that will hold your attention for more than 15 mins of its runtime – and that too mainly because Gulshan Devaiah digs in deep (even though a tad overplayed) as a pro-bono lawyer who aims to put the political bandits in their place– behind bars!