Mardaani: It is worthy to watch once for Rani Mukherjee’s performance. !!

A famous queen, said to have lived in medieval India, was described as ‘mardaani’. She fought the invaders of her land long and hard, and her bravery became part of folklore. No doubt, the makers of ‘Mardaani’ want to create resonance between this Rani and that Rani. And it has to be said that Mukerji gives as good as she gets in this vehicle created to boost her curve.

 

Rani Mukerji is not the obvious name that pops up in mind when you think of an actress who might pull off the fierce lady cop habitually mouthing cuss and giving that image a ruthless twist.

 

As Shivani Shivaji Roy, a Mumbai Crime Branch cop, Rani Mukerji plays it straight. That makes her largely authentic, which is crucial to our being able to take the movie seriously. She lends Mardaani a dash of the brilliant, without which the movie would seem rather ordinary.

 

Those familiar with blockbuster American crime drama 'Breaking Bad' would directly relate to the line that went with the central character of the TV series. Walter White a.k.a. Heisenberg was the one who spread his terror there in the world of drugs, albeit keeping some level of wisdom intact. He is what one terms, as 'the man with grey shades'.

 

There are no such shades for the villain of the piece (Tahir Bhasin) in Mardaani. A namesake (Walt) who is unabashed in his worship of Walter White and proudly displays his poster too at his home, he is all black. His crimes are all the more heinous. In addition to drugs, he also deals in sex trafficking.

 

Based out of Delhi and dealing out of Gurgaon, he is bad, and the one who is out to break him is Rani Mukerji, who hunts for him all the way from Mumbai. A cat and mouse game, on the lines similar as that of Akshay Kumar-Freddy play in Holiday, begins and the narrative maintains a very good pace right through its two hour narrative.

 

Rani plays Shivani Shivaji Roy, a senior inspector the Mumbai crime branch. The stock happy family picture drawn up for her includes a doctor husband (Jisshu Sengupta) and a little niece Meera, who lives with the couple.

 

One day, a little girl named Pyaari goes missing and Shivani gets down to investigating. She unravels shocking facts about the child trafficking mafia that thrives in Mumbai's underbelly and discovers Pyaari is among millions who fall prey to the heinous network.

 

Mardaani could well have entered an overtly dark zone, giving its setting of underage girls thrown into prostitution. But, full credit goes to director Pradeep Sarkar who not even once tries to get into the titillating zone. He had ample (justified) scope but he never resorts to skin show even when a dozen odd girls are paraded naked right in front of Walt. Moreover, there is no attempt to sensationalize the drama either. This means that no 'manufactured scenes' are embedded into the narrative so as to make you go all heavy hearted. Instead, the film acts as a heart pounding affair where you are taken on a roller coaster ride while being often thrown on the edge of the seat.

 

This is exactly where the win lies for Mardaani as the makers avoid taking the 'messaging' route and instead present the movie as a thriller where sex trafficking happens to be an accompanying partner instead of taking over the driving seat. What compliments the entertainment quotient of the movie are quite a few interesting scenes, many of which are unpredictable, particularly the pre-climax which not many can see coming. As for the finale, it is just fitting as well and pretty much in a realistic zone too, despite coming across as filmy on the exterior.

 

The narrative set-up attempted is a catand- mouse chase. Leave alone nabbing the kingpin, Shivani discovers it is next to impossible to even catch a glimpse of the guy. She finds herself chasing a villain no one seems to have ever seen.

 

The movie does manage to create a few excellent showdown sequences. The idea to highlight the need to respect the girl child and women, however, is diluted by preachy overtones. Plus, in the end Sarkar has made a very predictable film. Mardaani reveals no attempt to reorganise the cop drama as a genre for Bollywood.

Tahir’s first impression is terrific. If not for his inherent villainy, his charm could well have made him a nice boy that girls would want to introduce to the parents. His screen presence, dialogue delivery, accent, body language, mannerisms, sense of humour - just about everything blends so beautifully into the character that he comes across as an absolute real guy from the next door. He has a future definitely in Bollywood.

 

As for Rani Mukherjee, the experienced actor that she is, one expects her to deliver each time around and she does that flawlessly here. She is just terrific in the scene where she takes on a goon and the graph only goes upwards right till the last shot where she pours water over her head after a deadly encounter.

 

In the meantime, Pradeep Sarkar has to be complimented for his choice of supporting actors. Whether it is Vakil (Anil George - a Vijay Anand lookalike, and simply brilliant), the car dealer (Arijit Singh lookalike, again - very good), Tahir's sidekick, Rani's fellow cops, the Sikh cop from Delhi, the fixer, the Minister and of course the girl who plays Pyaari (Priyanka Sharma) - everybody is really believable.

 

With very good entertainment and just the right dose of realism and filmy drama/thrills, Mardaani has enough power to become a hit.

 

Mardaani aims to work as a crime drama for the urban audience. It does, to a large extent. Sarkar needed to pump in a bit more of energy into his narrative to make things more interesting.

 

Overall, it is worthy to watch once for Rani Mukherjee’s performance.