"Jalte ghar ko dekhne walon, phoos ka chappar aapka hai ... aag ke peeche tezz hawa, aage muqadar aapka hai"
(Loose translation: "All of you looking at the burning house, remember even your roofs are made of grass. The wind is blowing behind the blaze, who knows what fate awaits you down the line?")
With this dire warning starts Irada...
An ex-Army officer loses his daughter to Cancer. An RTI activist disappears after being warned off by goons. The activist's girlfriend publicly insults a big-shot business tycoon, accusing him for silencing her boyfriend and blaming him and his factory for illegally disposing off dangerous waste. Soon after, there is a massive blast in the Factory. An NIA officer is called in to investigate the blast. The CM, whose campaigns are generously funded by the business tycoon, wants the case solved as soon as possible, so that the businessman can claim the Insurance money. Is it a terrorist act? If so then which terrorist group is responsible for it? So starts an investigation that was supposed to be a simple open-and-shut case. But as he gathers evidence, the NIA officer begins to question whether there is more to the blast than a mere terrorist act?
The film is a detective story about this investigation. But truth be told, it doesn't really take a detective to figure out what's going on in the movie. Some claim that its a thriller. But do not watch it expecting a lot of thrills and action. This is certainly not one of those racy mindless action thrillers Bollywood churns out every month. And it is certainly not A Wednesday! But there are undertones to the movie that just cannot be ignored. What one of the characters in the movie says about the city, can also be said about the film - "Ye shahar jitna zameen ke uppar hain na....utnaa hi Zameen ke niche hai". There is more to it than meets the eye. There is as much to the movie under the story than what appears in the story itself.
Irada was not a box office success. People went in expecting a movie like A Wednesday! - and they were sorely disappointed. Which is understandable because, truth be told, even I was disappointed during the first half of the movie. Its like you went in expecting a kadak chai (piping hot strong tea) and instead landed up with lukewarm kaadha (medicinal decoct). It is only later that you realize that the kaadha really did you more good than the chai, and left a mild but entirely pleasant aftertaste. But Indian tastes are so blunted by the excessive bollywood masala that we are incapable of appreciating the fine aromas of movies with actual substance.
The movie boasts a pretty rock-solid cast of veteran actors. Arshad Warsi plays the role of the cocky NIA officer, who plays cool even in face of pressure from the Chief Minister. Naseeruddin Shah is portrayed as an ex-army officer, who loses his daughter to cancer, and may possibly have a role to play in the blast that took out the factory. Sharad Kelkar appears in the role of the powerful, highly influential and stereotypical corrupt business tycoon who owns the said factory. And Divya Dutta has superbly enacted the role of a corrupt Chief Minister, who is hand-in-glove with the corrupt business tycoon. She succeeds in portraying a really bad-ass antagonist that the audience can hate. But the movie fails to give us a protagonist the audience can root for. And this is probably what turned off many of us. With such a dynamite cast, one can't blame the audience for expecting big bangs and fireworks, some good face offs between the virtuous and the sleazy, and the ultimate showdown between good and evil. But all the characters appear underplayed. Even the NIA officer played so well by Arshad Warsi appears hand-tied in most situations. The director had the finest armory of big guns and bazookas. And yet, we are left wanting for some good old-fashioned action. But patience pays off. And by the time the final credits are rolling, we realize that the movie failed to utilize the fire-power of the great actors on purpose. Because it knows that a well timed and well placed single sniper shot is more effective than rockets and mortar.
I read a few reviews that state that the characters are mere cliched caricatures. Of course they are cliched, because they are all side characters. They are not as important as the central character of the movie. And the reviewers all tend to miss it. It makes a brief appearance but leaves a lasting impression because the director and the script writer have taken the pains to portray it at the cost of losing out on unnecessary drama and masala. The central character in this movie is the Punjab Cancer Train. If, like me, you had never ever heard of it before, then that is the glaring testimony of why this film is so relevant. And once you watch this movie, the way you look at our "Wheat Bowl of India", will never be the same again. And if the movie succeeds to do this, then its characterization was just perfect, I tell you.
It would be unfair to compare this movie with A Wednesday! (which is a brilliant movie in its own right), because, though the two films try to tackle socially relevant topics in a similar fashion, the topic that Irada tries to tackle is, I feel, much more relevant and impacting to our future, than the one tackled by A Wednesday!. While A Wednesday! is any time a better thriller and a better entertainer than Irada, I congratulate the Irada team for taking the efforts to highlight a topic which, despite it's seriousness and grave implications, has hardly received any media attention at all.
The movie had the potential to be a good thriller. But the makers purposefully chose to keep out excessive dramatics and unnecessary macho action scenes. With Naseeruddin Shah, one would have expected some virtuous rhetoric. Instead we are just treated with him quoting poems and shayaris. But here is the thing - the poems (just like the one that appears at the very start of the movie) are a warning. So is the movie... A wake up call meant for the people of this nation who have mastered the not-so-subtle art of not giving a fuck beyond me-and-my-own-in-today's-date.
All great movies open our eyes and make us see the world in a different light. Irada might not be a very entertaining thriller, but in doing this, it succeeds with flying colours.
My Rating: 3.5
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