Madaari Hindi Movie Review

“Sachi lagthi lehkin achi nahin
Achi lagti magar khuda kasam Sachi nahi”
What appear true does not appear to be real and what appear real Oh God! Does not appear to be true!!
In the debris of our morality, what is that these times will etch out and leave behind for the time capsule? From the high plank of metaphysical morality to the abyss of corruption completely eroding every aspect of our lives where and how did we go so terribly wrong! Where did we lose the ideal India? Like the lyrics of an aching father for his lost son we all have on our lips: Mere aas paas tha, Masoom sa…….
Is this the churning? Are we going terribly fatally and fatalistically wrong? Is our commitment for the Rule of Law dwindling with accelerated disdain? Are we consciously heading towards a daring self-driven anarchy, a macho grammar a tense terse terror stricken tired time? In case you have the time to even ask these questions and look beyond the cans and the cant’s (or is the Khans and the Kants!!) this tale of the Madaari may keep you absorbed and involved. Otherwise there is Kabali……..
We have lost the plot. Did we? Did all of us? Suddenly a smile filled life is reduced to memory – leaving behind a school bag pack, a water bottle (plastic ), a pair of shoes, memories bitterness and Vendetta. From the rubbles of a collapsing bridge an anguish filled Dad Nirmal Kumar (Irfan Khan – at yet another brilliant outing) decides to take law into his own hands, to shake up the collective slumber more than to seek personal revenge. Like A Wednesday hereto the protagonist justifies the path he chooses that individually can be admired within the precincts of cinematic heroics but collectively can be dubbed at the national level as extremism and at the international level as terrorism. So Nirmal finds solace and expression by kidnapping the ten-year-old Rohan (Vishesh Bansal) from a Boarding school. He is the son of the Home Minister Prashant Goswami (Tushar Dalvi) and (Ayesha Reza). The police is called in and the news kept under wraps. Obviously it is a huge embarrassment for the government if the Home Minister cannot protect his own family. Heading the operations to retrieve the kidnapped is Inspector Nachket (Jimmy Shergill). Obviously the route to solving a crime is to look for the cause. The police realise that corruption is the cause. Nirmal lost his son in a building collapse and would thus haunt the guys who caused it. The engineers, the contractors, the officials, the party in power and the politicians who made merry. Thus begins the cat and mouse game. He is out there in the open and the “äam aadmi” concept is at work. Also at work is the Stockholm syndrome leading to a finale that loses punch but not credibility.
Spare a thought off the cappuccino and the caramel popcorn, as life hurts the citizen. The system stalks him. The Rule of Law sounded hollow for the first time in the solitude of the theatre. Six decades of a belief seemed to crumble suddenly against training, warning, caution, reading (I hate to use the expression learning). It seems suddenly a pale alternative to the happenings on the streets. WhatsApp messages, tweets and FB postings notwithstanding we are in a mess and Madaari is about that mess. It is about mute faces of a millennium waiting for the Messiah – a moppet messiah. Cinematically it ends on the same positive note that Sham Benegal signed off his Ankur four decades ago. We however are still grappling.

+ Seriousness
– Worrisome solution.
Rating: 3.5 stars

L. Ravichander.