Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Mrunal Thakur, Amruta Subhash
Director: Ram Madhvani
BLUF
A prime-time television host Arjun Pathak has been demoted to be a radio host. One fine day, he gets a call on his show of a disgruntled man threatening to bomb the Mumbai Sea link unless he receives an apology from the Minister in the Government. Arjun grabs this opportunity to further his career and pushes his channel to give him his Prime-Time spot back.
But his execution of the drama of the Sea Link explosion is mired with personal stakes. This is the newsroom drama that tells the story of the news business.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
This movie is a remake of the 2013 South Korean thriller Deo Tereo Raibeu (The Terror Live). We have seen the inner workings of the news business in exemplary shows as The Newsroom, in its unique way in the way it blended relatively recent, real-life events with its fictional drama.
The Indian newsroom is a stage for drama for ratings with no standards for real investigative journalism and truth.
The movie reflects the ratings game and how news channels in India are really not basing their “News” upon reality. The audience who watches the news inadvertently takes the headlines to be real and believes the anchors. People base the reality upon these hosts.
As Arjun Pathak asks the producer of the News “Par yeh Sach Nahi Hai” (But this is not true)
And she responds, “Haan, Yeh News Hai” (Yes, that’s the News)
IN THE KNOW
Newsroom dramas reflect the news culture of the audience who watches them. Shot in a single newsroom with ariel CGSs, the newsroom drama is intense, honest, and very raw. Kartik Aaryan shines in his portrayal of a news host with a bomb in his earpiece as he negotiates with a disgruntled bomber.
Mrunal Thakur perfectly performs a limited role with aplomb. Prateek Kuhad’s soundtrack is eclectic.
The cinematography, camera work, the background score is congruent to the intense story. When a film is restricted to one location, it forces the writers to be more creative. There is more drama and tension fleshed out of every scene, and the result is usually more interesting than big set pieces and done-to-death action scenes.
It wrings every ounce of drama possible out of the scenario and leads to an interesting climax scene.
There are two kinds of movie journalists: crusaders for the truth, and ruthless bloodsuckers who will do anything for a story. Arjun Pathak is the second kind and as the story unravels, the politics of the Indian newsroom are laid bare open.
Kartik Aaryan’s Dhamaka is clearly not a glowing endorsement of the Indian mainstream journalism, but it’s so goddamn good that it doesn’t matter. Besides, the film clearly is sympathetic towards Arjun Pathak’s circumstances especially when he stakes everything for the wife he was going to divorce. Then you know that had he any standards, none of this would’ve happened.
WHAT WE LOVED
Kartik Aaryan
The one-room intense, gripping story
WHAT WE MISSED
The takedown of the news drama is too soft
