Review Badlapur: A Flawed But Stylish Thriller

BANGALORE: In the slow-burning Badlapur, both the opening scene and the climax catch the audience unawares. They are the film's high points.

 The rest of the film may not be quite as unmissable, but director and co-writer Sriram Raghavan packs enough meat into his stylish, unconventional neo-noir thriller to ensure that it stays on track for the most part.

 The screenplay by Raghavan and Arijit Biswas pushes Badlapur beyond the familiar boundaries of the genre by placing the drama within a moral compass that is anything but formulaic.

 A young adman Raghu loses his bearings when his wife and son are killed by two bank robbers on a Pune street.

 One of the criminals gets away, but the other, Liak Mohammad, is caught and convicted although he insists that it was his accomplice who pulled the trigger on Raghu's wife.

 The distraught Raghu quits his job, moves to a small town called Badlapur, and buckles down to the mission to avenge his wife and son's death.

Badlapur is, on the face of it, about senseless tragedy, all-consuming anger and the fierce desire for vendetta, but it is also about forgiveness, second chances and redemption.

 Where the film tends to go wrong is in the portrayal of the women that are caught in the fight between the brooding protagonist and the wily criminal.

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