However, the Dharma Production is too squeamish about getting the hands of its lead pair dirty – from diapers to dishes to that big ‘d’ word, divorce. So just when they are hovering on the brink, Chand Mera Dil pulls back to bung in a soulful song that is as soulless as that next Insta picture – of which there are several – or takes another of its quicksilver diversions. Trains and SRK’s arms-wide-open, Dharma’s other fallbacks, are also invoked. So promising in his previous outings (Kill, Ba*ds of Bollywood), Lakshya sheds a copious amount of tears and screams his heart out here, but never really connects as either hopelessly in love or in despair, not the least because of an unclear dialogue delivery and the lacklustre chemistry between him and Panday.
It as easily sidles in, and skips out of, problematic issues such as dowry, for laughs, as you wonder more and more what Titli, with at least money and looks going for her, sees in Ranjan – who, she herself points out more than once, has little, if anything, going for him. That could be a story too, as the free-spirited Titli threatens to upset Ranjan’s world, with his mother an enterprising breadwinner with a business in pickles. But just when you are digging into your popcorn, the film takes its most ambitious turn, and stumbling, swerving and somersaulting – even as you wish it would just keep lying down for once – finds a moral centre! There is even a mild stab at communal harmony, while Karan Sharma (also the co-writer) is at it.
However, from the encounter of Burhan Wani (who is perhaps the only one identified by his real name), to the Pulwama attack, to the Balakot strike, to journalists (one TV anchor in particular, and you will know who) who are just self-serving careerists, to mocking human rights, to the mass arrests and the security clampdown that lasted for months after August 5, 2019, Article 370 offers us only one perspective on an issue that continues to defy simple answers. The ordinary Kashmiri is personified in just one old man, who says he is tired of “begging” existing Valley leadership for favours and of seeing their children pushed into militancy. The film does not even venture into Jammu, forget Ladakh, crucial pieces to the puzzle.
Wandering around, no matter how many times Bhaiyya Ji himself rises from the dead. Then Mithali, a nicely well-rounded Hussain – giving us another hope that Karki is embracing a body type more natural to an older woman – drops in to lend a hand and her sniper-shooter skills. Her parents back in Bihar at one time appear to warn her about hanging around with a man of violence like Bhaiyya Ji,
When he is allowed to, Patekar still shows the good actor he is. However, Utkarsh Sharma (a pleasant enough actor) finds a way into every frame, and gets to land some flying-in-the-air kicks and make some flying-in-the-air rescues – even when both are ridiculously superfluous to the story.
It should be a crime to make certain films in the 21st century. And a film where a boy (would you call Kartik Aaryan a man, think hard) turns out good simply because his genetics are originally of a rich family, even if he had been swapped at birth into a clerk’s abode, as opposed to his counterpart who never really rises above his poor clerk family genes despite living in privilege, should surely qualify. Particularly when the clerk who is instrumental in this baby swap is called, only and only, Valmiki. He does this out of all kinds of wrong reasons, and has almost no redeeming feature. Do they not know how wrong this is on all levels, or they just don’t care? The rich Jindals in contrast, who have lost their Shehzada unknowingly to Valmiki, are nice enough people — even if they do treat old retainer Valmiki pretty shittily.
If the film’s first 20-odd minutes are rip-offs of Hollywood’s assembly line action thrillers, where people kill and die before you have even settled down for your popcorn, Dhaakad’s last 20 are an exercise in overkill. That the middle holds so well is a tribute to its actors, its efforts at giving us some human characters, and its story that trots along nicely (credit to debutant director and co-screenwriter Razneesh Ghai). At one place, we come to know of a medical condition where a person’s heart is tilted more towards the right than normal, which saves their life. Dhaakad has its heart in the right place.
