Dhaakad is all about child and woman trafficking

Budapest: When the shooters rest while the sword fighters are at it in the dark museum like space, the ambush has its victims. Yes, Agni (Kangana Ranaut) saves many in a twin piece suit. She is her own person. Is the character based on the star or vice versa? She disobeys the “call off” order […]

Budapest: When the shooters rest while the sword fighters are at it in the dark museum like space, the ambush has its victims. Yes, Agni (Kangana Ranaut) saves many in a twin piece suit. She is her own person. Is the character based on the star or vice versa? She disobeys the “call off” order from Boss (Saswata Chatterjee). However, this one-woman anti trafficking squad carries the baggage of a victim. She also carries wigs that went out of fashion with Sharmila Tagore (An Evening in Paris) and Rakhi (Sharmilee). Our leading Jane Bond is at it, but the bad world engaged in child and woman trafficking could care less.

From Budapest to Bhopal: Time for Indian dark grey blacks. Rudraveer (Arjun Rampal) and Rohini (Divya Dutta) in the Madhya Pradesh coal belt, with an overzealous narrator in the backdrop giving us a ball-by-ball commentary on the vicious growth of the kingpins in the flesh trade. They are ruthless and in form like Jos Buttler and Dinesh Karthik in the IPL. They do away with Samsher (Gabriel Gorgiou). The latter is ruthlessly maimed and burnt in a saloon with Rudraveer and Rohini like Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer in a Wild West tale of the 60s. The season of violence is only a trailer.

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Pause: Get the narrative – Agni is acting for an anti-trafficking agency reporting to Saswata Chatterjee. So, she is in the Wild Tom vs Wicked Jerry race. The script is incident filled. After Budapest, Agni gets to informer Fazal (Sharib Hashmi) and his little daughter Zaira whose presence you know in the director’s insurance in the tale. So, till the interval we have the lady in action shooting at her will and the viewers’ pleasure.

Post popcorn time: Magazines are up in flames. Rudra tattooed, dressed in dark brown, living in a dim-lit cave unlike Shakaal in Shaan adds an O to his Hindi lecture to a guerilla war tea in the midst to a background fatal cry. Rudra wins the first battle of Bhopal. He thinks Agni is vanquished. Agni is a survivor.

Having laid down the premise, the cast, and the sets, director Razneesh Ghai moves out and hands over operations to the action and the stunt teams which go berserk. Looks like at the half time, which is about an hour, the film maker reads the exit sign more seriously than the audience.

The battle between the poorly prepared squad and the deeply entrenched vicious traders is in full cry. Just when you think it is the climax, you are told there is more in store. In the midst of shoots, shouts, heavy dialogues the audience yearns for relief. Sample the intelligence with this instance: the incognito spy – Jane Bond in Goldie Hawn wig and Rekha lipstick croons a killer number at the villain’s den.

This woman centric action thriller serves no purpose. It does not celebrate womanhood. With Divya Dutta occupying large screen space as a sex trader where is woman empowerment in celeb form? She is good. Arjun Rampal follows the Gulshan Grover school of villainy where the costume designer does more than the villain. Slim is grim. Nothing more. He fails to translate evil on screen. Gentleman Arjun is good for Rock On.

Kangana Ranaut has a tailor-made role. Yes, this is far from her best. While the action scenes dominate the film, there is little that can be attributed to the actor.

From surviving storytelling to surviving violence and perversity – a new steady branch of Bollywood is growing. A new genre – inoculating indifference is being injected – a new cultural vaccine. The Katputli Ki Dor statement (borrowed from Simi Garewal in Do Badan – 1966) clearly points out to how in this puppet show it is the viewer who is the helpless puppet.