Madaari – Irrfan Khan Is The Only Saving Grace In This Otherwise Middling Film

Playing an eccentric person is never easy. Every other actor will tell you the same. Playing a regular character is much easier. Irrfan Khan plays Nirmal Kumar, a techie in the movie. The movie is directed by Nishikant Kamat, who recently made Drishyam and Rocky Handsome.

Madaari Movie Review

The character played by Irrfan Khan kidnaps a top politician’s son as revenge for his dead son. A public tragedy that caused by the corrupt political system killed his son. And that provides enough motives for Nirmal Kumar to kidnap the boy.

As you may have already seen in the trailer, there is this dialogue that tells the core message of the film. The character says that he was the ideal voter who minded his own business by looking after his family. The character goes on to say that he bought into every lie fed by the politicians and believed the lies spread by the media. This line pretty much sums up the whole movie.

It’s all about a frustrated common man taking the law into his hands. Madaari is a thriller revolving around the problems faced by the common man and how they have been conned by shrewd politicians time and again.

Madaari talks about how common people have been exploited and deceived by the politicians. Or in other words, Madaari tries to prove the point that we are responsible for this mess as we have elected them.

What if one of those regular voters decides to protest? What if a common man decides to find solutions on his own by taking the law into his hands? The movie answers these questions.

The plot of the film may have reminded you of 2008’s well-made thriller A Wednesday starring Naseeruddin Shah & Anupam Kher. In the movie Naseeruddin Shah takes the law into his hands because he was fed up of the terrorist who disturbed his peaceful existence. However, in Madaari, Nirmal wants to punish the system itself, which is responsible for the mess.

Jimmy Shergill, who was part of A Wednesday as well, plays the role of CBI super-cop Nachiket Verma. His character might remind you of Anupam Kher’s character in A Wednesday. Both these characters endorse the actions of the antagonist.

The anarchic plot has its own issues, as was the case with A Wednesday. Well, the plot definitely deserves a debate. However, unlike A Wednesday, Madaari falls short on many counts.

Nishikant Kamat gave us the beautiful thriller Drishyam in 2015. But unlike Drishyam, here he fails to execute the suspense. One can’t put all the blame on Nishikant as the weak script has failed him. One can’t do much with such a script. The script should have been a lot better.

Shailja Kejriwal penned the story while Ritesh Shah wrote the screenplay. Ritesh Shah has also written the dialogues for the film. The writer struggles to combine political commentary and mystery effectively. Of course, Nirmal Kumar’s character has been given prominence. He has a backstory and his character looks like a full-fledged one. But that is not the case when it comes to lot of supporting characters. Also, Nirmal abducts the son of the politician who seems like a decent politician who is already a victim of the system himself.

If we take a closer look, we can see that they have hurried both the script and filming. They haven’t done much to provide details to the plot or characters.

Jimmy Shergill is a reliable actor, but he looks less involved here and that doesn’t help the movie at all. As for the media, there is only one reporter and TV channel to deal with all those breaking news, which tells us a lot about the detailing problem we have been talking about.

The loud TV news anchor might remind you of certain real life anchor. Here you should note that this particular reporter has a role to play in the later part of the plot. Also, I am not that impressed about the way they handled the twist. They could have handled it in a better manner.

When it comes to the technical side, the cinematography is the saving grace of the film, without any doubt. The songs are misplaced in the movie. Overall, it is an average fair.

I would give 2 out of 5 stars for the film.