CAST: Sanjay Mishra, Manav Vij, Neena Gupta,
DIRECTOR: Jaspal Singh Sandhu, Rajeev Barnwal
Based in Gwalior, Shambhunath Mishra and his wife Manju are leading a slow life of a debt-ridden old couple who are under stress due to the money that they owe to the bank and a moneylender because they paid for their son to immigrate to the US.
Now, that being said, the timeline and the story does not date well. Even 20 years back, internet and video calls in India were available on people’s phones, this couple actually makes trips to the local internet cafe to make video calls to their bhagbanish son in the States. For a movie produced by the same guys who own Jio, a little flabbergasting.
Sanjay Mishra stands at the bank, making trips to check his money in this era of internet banking calculating his principal and interest.
However, despite these dated scenes, there is a loan shark, who makes the life of this old couple hell just for a few lakhs. Did he not loan any other peeps money?
As he extorts from the old couple, he brings women over to sleep with, eats meat and also drinks (woah what a plot) – things we had not heard of. Including used condoms. Such a culture shock in the 80’s but what about 2022?
But when he decides he must also have a 12 year old girl, old masterji decides to slice and dice him with a screw driver and throw his pieces in jute bags.
The rest of the story is about the cops tracking the killer and what happens next but all of that happens so quickly that you wonder why they took so much time establishing the crooked dead guy at all.
Establishing how a Vadh ( killing for righteousness) is different from a murder – the movie makes a case for the old couple.
The characters are shoddily portrayed and one sympathises with Neena Gupta and Sanjay Mishra as these brilliant actors become the subject of a badly made movie.
The stories of the disadvantages turning against the system are good plots but this one fails mainly because they realistic , sans stylized lens used.
Had the makers made an attempt to hyperbolize it a bit, this could have been a more interesting watch. This version is sans any feeling, creating an lacking version of the story. We feel a sense of betrayal as the brilliant actors just cannot fit into the story that has no feel to it.
