'Vadh' movie review: Wut?

Film VadhDirectors Jaspal Singh Sandhu Rajeev BarnwalActors Sanjay Mishra Neena GuptaRating 25Surely senior citizens in general have a lot more time to spare Have you wondered though why so many of them visit banks so often mdash even now when practically all savings accounts have gone online As with neighbours friends relatives mdash I guess retirees simply love to pay a visit to their moneyI thought that was the case with the old leadingman in this movie waiting across the bank teller Nope He actually owes money to the bank and checks from time to time the status on his principal minus interestThe other baffling thing about the casual routine of this geriatric from Gwalior is regularly showing up at a cyber cafeacute mdash in the world of cheap data plus smart phones mdash to place video calls to his son abroad 300 bucks for a few minutes Vadh is a film produced by Reliance JioWhatrsquos more peculiar is that son on Skype whorsquos the reason the old man must routinely go to the bank and that cyber cafeacute Hersquod taken big loan for his sonrsquos study abroad He naturally wants to know if the son now perfectly settled with an apartment family can help pay off the retired manrsquos heavy loan The loan is actually the sonrsquosNow wersquove seen blokes from Baghban But one look at that ungrateful progeny in this pic and the look on your face is more likely to be of disbelief For no one will behave like such a moron even if they were acting out this part in life itselfSurely there are ingrates Just as there must be a serious loan shark as in this film who bothers the old man so much mdash yoursquoll forget the wily overthetop lsquomuneemjisrsquo from Bollywood pix of the pastLook at this filthy pig To pick up interest money the sick lender parks himself in the old manrsquos small house and performs all the lsquounthinkablesrsquo according to the filmmakers at one go eat chicken kabab sleep with sex worker shabab swig booze sharaabThere exists a circular extortion trade between this gangsterlender and the cop you could possibly complain to The old man and his timid wife are practically trapped totally terrified Sanjay Mishraji plays that lower middleclass lead Mishraji Shambhunath in this movie set among similar uppercastes Rathore Singh Pandey etc in middle IndiaWhat happens with absolute smallfries in a small town caught in a web of an unbeatable bully they can do nothing about Well theyrsquoll have to somehow eliminate the shark right Laws be damned mdash if itrsquos under clutches of the oppressor anyway Hell thatrsquos real fury Heavily recommend the Netflix documentary series Indian Predator Season 3 Murder in a Courtroom 2022 set in NagpurVadh is similarly a film about a murder yes Like so many movies aremdashbut itrsquos essentially an intimate pic In the sense that Mishraji brutally knocks down his loanshark Crime has been committed Audience is aware of the killer This is a suspensethriller then The filmmakers approach it through a grim desi smalltown realistic lens Which is why it irks much when anything isnrsquot realisticbelievable enoughIf the treatment was more stylisednoir mdash the same story could look like say Andhadhun 2018 if you may Or for that matter Monica O My Darling 2022 based on the Japanese Keigo Higashinorsquos novel The same authorrsquos Devotion of Suspect X is being made as a Bollywood film with Kareena Kapoor in it Devotion in turn was the alleged inspiration for Drishyam 2013Vadh is beyond doubt a byproduct of the phenomenal commercial success of the lowmediumbudget thriller Drishyam originally in Malayalam and that got even better with its sequel What the filmmakers add to the genrespace here is a strongly rugged desi rustic feel What do all the suspensethrillers mentioned above have in common An unlikely common person commits a serious crimeWhat follows is the film of course Only that in this movie perhaps the script was better the murder itself is hardly a lsquomoney shotrsquo Its consequences donrsquot seamlessly add up The prime suspect in this case even a novice will realise is the murderer himself No one cares You worry for the kind of folks employed in Gwalior PoliceActor Manav Vij plays the main crook cop in this movie mdash the same profession his fab character had in Andhadhun Look how amazingly Vijrsquos career has taken off since In 2022 alone he wholly headlined the series Tanaav remake of Fauda besides pull off prominent parts in Samrat Prithviraj Mohd Ghori Laal Singh Chaddha Mohd PaajiEasily towering above all in this pic are Mishraji and his wife played by Neena Gupta of course Both these stars are Indian film genres unto themselves mdash naturally reflecting desi realities through their presence alone like few screen performers wersquove known We can watch them together forever A better movie maybeAlso ReadAn Action Hero movie review Retraction of a hero