It is Rani Mukherjee who holds Mardaani together. In a way the film has its
unusual traits which include facts such as it being the first Adult certified
film from Yashraj camp. It is also a film that lasts just about 113 minutes
which is very unusual for the camp. Of course film buffs would remind one of
Yash Chopra directing Ittefaq a taut whodunit in the 1970s. The film has a
protagonist heroine who is not in her chiffons mouthing Lata numbers at Swiss
mountains.
The reference to Chulbul Pandey, notwithstanding, it projects the tale of a
police officer far removed from Singham and the likes. We for a change have a
lady playing a pivotal role normally assumed to be the male bastion of kick
beat slap punch kick and kill without any limit. It is not that Rani is the
first lady cop. She is arguably backed up with the first role of meat and
substance (and ofcourse the production house!!). Earlier the likes of Hema and
Rekha converted the uniform into a costume drama. Rani does not. If Dimple
brought angst to the role, Rani brings spirit and energy to the role.
Shivani Shivaji Rao (Rani Mukherjee) is an Inspector who is always on the prowl
and is willing to take law into her hands and deliver instant justice. She
beats up a hooligan gang for the mayhem they create at a shopping centre and
also raids a flesh trade home. Soon she has a huge challenge on hand when Pyari
(Priyanka Sharma) a sales girl at a traffic signal goes missing. The little
girl is incidentally the police officer’s foster child and friend of the
officer’s niece. This begins the cat and mouse game between the guy who runs
the child sex racket Walt (Tahir Bhasin) and Shivani. In all of hundred minutes
the film maker Pradeep Sarker tells the story of how the smart lady police
officer dares and delivers. The twists and turns are indeed interesting but for
a film maker who eschews the formulistic templates of main stream cinema for a
good part suddenly succumbs and gives in to the temptation of the trigger
happy, muscle flexing variety in a climax that preaches violence and anarchy. In
fact as the film leads to the climax you are convinced that the film maker is
on a different path though not avant garde, but he so visibly slips into the
predictable that it glaringly shows. Editor Sanjib Dutta somewhere fails to put
things in proper perspective.
The film belongs to Rani Mukherjee – in ways more than one!! She gives one of
her best performances. After having taken on the garb of the guys in Dil Bole
Hadipa, she sticks to the basics and within the stated premise delivers a punch
filled performance. She is not just the central character, she is the soul of
the film. Foot falls are likely to increase given the dialogues and the hopeful
mouth to ear campaign that follows a film of this kind. It is also redeeming to
watch a police officer role being portrayed without too many heroics. However I
have a serious problem with the propagation of the idea that the police or the
citizen for that matter can get vengeful and destroy the criminal.
Stars: 2 and half.
+ Rani Mukherjee and length of the film
– The badly handled climax.