My Take On BADLAPUR - "This Skillfully Made, Well Acted Thriller Can Be Very Much Watchable"

Badlapur, a neo noir revenge saga, directed by Sriram Raghavan is sharp, edgy, unusual and unpredictable thriller which is far from our regular Bollywood masala thrillers that have over the top actions, tacky dialogues, too many cliches and loud performances. This one is more of a real, twisted drama and director Raghavan succeeds in making us engaged and captivated for the most part. The mixture of violence, sex and maniac like characteristics due to a sudden grief of our hero plus the weird yet humorous nature of the antagonist works here.

Highpoints -

1) Unpredictability, crisp twists and turns in the screenplay are appreciable.
2) Solid script consisting of clever humour and deep sorrows backed by neat direction deserves applause.
3) Exceptionally well acted by the film's two leads - Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Varun, just in his fourth film, has shown tremendous growth in acting. He successfully portrays the very complexed role with both sincerity and maturity. Its a crazy, wicked character which Varun does complete justice to. Meanwhile, the vastly skilled Nawazuddin yet again impresses with a striking performance. He's funny, cunning and even likeable as the baddie 'Liak'. Its a sheer pleasure to watch him on screen.
4) Among the supporting performers, Huma Quereshi is wonderful. Divya Dutta does well. Vinay Pathak is alright.
5) Music of the film is nice. Jee Karda is a terrific number. Others are passable too.
6) Editing and background score are good.

With all this going in its favour, Badlapur is still flawed and problematic.

Lowpoints -

1) Sluggish pace and chaotic moments at several places will make you bore.
2) This crisp thriller is letdown by an unconvincing climax that has no spark, surprise.
3) There is no great suspense in the film. If you are expecting a nail biting suspense from this flick, you will be disappointed.

Thus Badlapur on the whole, is a smart attempt to the thriller genres. Its off beat nature may not be liked by all but no doubt this is a skillfully directed revenge tale boasted with two spectacular performances. Its mainly for all the intellectual movie viewers.

Rating - 3.5/5

Watch it friends. Its mostly watchable!