MOVIE REVIEW: BADLAPUR BOYS

Film: Badlapur Boys
Director: Shailesh Varma
Cast: Nishan Nanaiah, Annu Kapoor, Saranya Mohan, Kishori Shahane

Rating:

‘Badlapur Boys’ has its essence intact but the story is enormously slack. The film doesn’t hesitate in depicting the losers in the most unattractive light. ‘Badlapur Boys’ is set in a UP village, and gives us a bunch of ‘anaadi’ but enthusiastic boys who are willing to give up their lives for ‘kabaddi’. When the villagers’ appeal for a water dam falls on deaf ears, the hero’s father suicides, leaving behind a son Vijay (newcomer Nishan) who would henceforth be called ‘paagal baap ka beta’. He goes to an adjacent township to tend to goats in the field. Being an enthusiastic kabbadi player, he is enticed by the sound of the local boys playing the sport in an open field. He joins them and on his return learns that the goats have gone astray. Remember that other towering Vijay in ‘Deewaar’ furious and boiling with that tattoo ‘mera baap chor hai’? This Vijay is far milder, almost a lamb. He gets a thrashing from his superior and is made to promise that he will never play kabaddi again. Vijay grows up and submissively performs his tasks while he observes the local team get a whipping in every trip. They decide to go to another state to participate in a state level tournament where they are courteously turned down. Vijay has tagged along as one of the players decides his job was more important. However, as luck would have it, in a Bollywood filmy trend one team fails to turn up and they are given a possibility to perform at the national level, without knowing any of the basic rules of the game! They manage to pull through the initial rounds and towards the end are helped by Anu Kapoor who is the coach of the Railways team, but walks out because of the politics within the set-up. Anticipatively Vijay has become the star. He suffers a grave injury however in a filmy way he plays in the final to earn the crucial point that gives Badlapur Boys the title. The storyline was good enough but a bit filled up with too much Bollywoodian cacophony. Add to it the unnecessary love angle in the plot it pulls the film further down. Like any other unsolved Bollywood mysteries hereto Vijay jumps out of the hospital bed. On the contrary the good part to all of us is to realize as a viewer is the fight of Vijay for his village and his mission to establish that his father was not mad, as is being said by the whole village and that his sacrifice was not futile. Shashank as Vijay brings honesty and an earnest appeal to the character. He makes you want to like him, without going over the top with his goodness. It’s interesting to watch the film because of its casting. Shailesh Verma has selected remarkable characters who add color to the screen. However, a smarter control on the presentation would have done wonders for the film altogether.

Reviewer: R. Subrata (TNI Siliguri)