A Potpourri of Vestiges Review
By Murtaza Ali Khan
By Murtaza Ali Khan
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
Raazi is a
slow burning thriller that repeatedly asks us to suspend our disbelief. Directed
by Meghna Gulzar, Raazi is based on Harinder Sikka’s novel titled Calling Sehmat
which is inspired by real events. The film stars Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal, and
Jaideep Ahlawat in major roles. Produced under the banner of Dharma
Productions, Razi costars Arif Zakaria, Rajit Kapur, Soni Razdan, Shishir Sharma,
and Amruta Khanvilkar.
In Raazi, Alia
Bhatt plays a 20 year old Kashmiri girl whose dying father marries her into an
army family in Pakistan to serve as an Indian spy in the days leading to the
1971 Indo-Pak War. While Alia plays her part with great skill, the success of
the film greatly depends on how well the viewers receive her in the role of a
cold-blooded and calculative killer with an innocent face.
One of the
problems with the film’s characters is that they seem to take themselves too
seriously. Take, for example, the character played by Jaideep Ahlawat. Now, Ahlawat
is a fantastic actor and he does a wonderful job in Raazi but the way his character
is written makes him look more like a caricature rather than a plausible
character. The thing that amuses me the most is that while writing their characters
for espionage films the writers invariably end up basing them on Ian Fleming’s novels
instead of looking at the realist spy characters written by John le Carré for
ideas.
By far the
most interesting performance in Raazi comes from Arif Zakaria who plays a loyal
Pakistani servant, with great nuance and subtlety. Vicky Kaushal fails to leave
any impression in the weak role of Alia's husband. The film's first half is
slow but quite promising. Unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver in the
second half.
A major problem
with Raazi is that its plot suffers from an element of predictability
throughout. Even towards the end there are no major unexpected twists or turns
barring one which too more or less gives itself away. The film does have its
moments but ultimately they prove to be few and far between. The fact that the
movie's trailer almost gave away the entire plot didn't help in keeping the
element of suspense intact. Hopefully makers would be more careful in future
while packaging their trailers.
Rating: 5.5/10
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
Raazi - Official Trailer (YouTube)
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