TRIGGER WARNING : VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN DEPICTED

CAST: Yami Gautam Dhar, Neha Dhupia, Atul Kulkarni, Karanvir Shama

DIRECTED BY:  Behzad Khambhata

BLUF

When a playschool teacher kidnaps 16 small students, and she puts up a series of demands, it not only shakes the Mumbai police and city, but it sends repercussions throughout the country and its politicians

THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES

The social message thriller that templatizes itself through the rage of a common woman who has personal trauma at stake when she takes her tiny tots as hostage to bring to the attention of the Prime Minister of India to an issue that demands her attention.

Naina (Yami Gautam), a play school teacher holds hostahe 16 kids in her playschool, and she makes some  demands to let the children out safely. A very Pregnant  ACP Catherine Alvarez (Neha Dhupia), reaches the playschool. Catherine tries to speak to Naina, but Naina asks for Javed Khan (Atul Kulkarni) as the person she wants to talk to. As Javed comes into the crime scene, Naina sets up an plot where a lot of lives get caught in a tizzy.

She continues to go live on the internet with her demands as she alerts the cops and brings the whole media paraphernalia to cover her story. As she makes her demands, the whole country stops and watches the story till she gets the attention of the top politician in the country.

IN THE KNOW

If you are against Gun Violence, this movie will trigger you especially because it will remind you of Sandy Hook.

Whatever the story, justifying violence against children or even the threat of violence, may be very traumatic to a lot of individuals.

“A Thursday” is not a sequel to the Neeraj Pandey masterpiece “A Wednesday” in any form or manner.

That classic Neeraj Pandey movie about an uncle in a neighborhood – a common man who takes up an unconventional manner to tackle the wrong in the system was a cult classic.

A Thursday definitely conjures up that imagery with its title and the premise, but it is not definitely the nail biter it projected itself to be.

Here the protagonist picks up the same path (justified by the writers as heroism if you break the law for a cause bigger than you) but for the trauma she herself had faced.

Yami Gautam is great in the role, unhinged enough to portray a cold-blooded killer and warm enough to slide into the playschool teacher in a jiffy.

This movie does indeed portray a world full of women leading charge – whether it is our unhinged terrorizer Naina or the cop (Neha Dhupia and pregnant), the media news anchor( Maya Sarao), who uses the situation to bring up her ratings in a very Dhamakish subplot or the Indian Female Prime Minister ( A very elegant Dimple Kapadia) while presenting the dichotomy of a basic women protection law not being in place with so many women protagonists.

It seemed that the writers were extremely careful in not presenting the character of Naina (Gautam) as too sinister lest she loses the sympathy of the viewers, so it makes them chicken out of consistency leaving gaping loopholes in the story. Though she starts out weirdly uncomfortable in the hostage crises but slowly warms up into her character.

The back story is the weakest in the plot and the director makes a very hard attempt at justifying that the path that Naina took was the best solution to the trauma inflicted upon her.  That salute from her fiancé Rohit ( Karanvir Sharma) at her feat as she finally gets arrested is awkward because the story does not justify her actions enough. She ain’t no Gandhi.

At no point does the story even stop and consider the trauma of the toddlers that have become props for Naina in the story , or that of the parents.

There is no justification for that loophole.

Atul Kulkarni, who is a powerhouse performer also has some over the top scenes and the chemistry between his character Javed and Neha Dhupia’s Alvarez as ex partners is at best rudimentary though a lot of potential  could have been exploited there.

The film makes a serious attempt at pleasing all types of tropes that there can be. So, people of all religions co-mingle in a KJo-ish world as a D & I statement to check that box.

The issue dealt with in this movie is too important to be trivialized. Yami adds a lot of chutzpah to the character but is let down by the back story imperfections.

Shall we wait for A Friday now before the weekend gets hit?

WHAT WE LOVED

Yami

The shots, the pans are great

WHAT WE MISSED

Consistent story

Insensitive towards children

BG score