Another sensational movie from Dhanush K. Raja, the producer of 'The Crow's Egg' that I recently reviewed in this site. This time he joined the hands with the writer, director who bought him a best actor award at the Indian Academy Award for the movie 'Playground'. The film was based on the novel 'Lock Up' that loosely inspired by the experiences of the author who is an autorickshaw driver now.
I already mentioned that Indian cinema is waking up, knocking the doors of the international film critics, films festivals and film buffs. Thanks to the young generation in the film industry, looking for the international market expansion. It's time for you to check it out some of the Indian parallel cinemas, not the masala films. If you think you're totally in an unfamiliar territory, then it will be good to you start with this one.
India is like the European Union, where each nation speaks a different language and its own culture, likewise each Indian state has a different language and culture. That's why it might be called the Indian subcontinent. This story begins when three Tamil labourers who are illegally living in a city park to save rent money from the work in the neighbor state Andhra, will be taken to the police custody without letting know them the reason. The rest of the film exposes the law enforcement agency's brutality on these young innocent men to force to accept a crime that is not committed by them which is a violation of human rights.
"The influence is more important than skill when it comes to promotions."
The film has two phases and they were not focused on any particular characters. It is a couple of different events based flick that connected to each other by the characters. But everything is about corruption in the police force and common people who affected by that. Kind of unpredictable scenes with the decent twists. The first half takes place in Andhra Pradesh with the backdrop of some robbery case and then in the next half it moves to Tamil Nadu with once again a cop tale, but different scenario.
Welcome to the Indian police's torture chamber. The dark side of the Indian police force. Not all about the bad cops, but also involves those honest ones caught between dishonest ones from the higher power. There was a small romance plot in the opening, later it vanished when entire story focus shifted to police interrogation. The pace had many up and down, that helped to turn things around like transforming from one state of condition to another.
This theme was exactly opposite to the old saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice'. You can call it a bad luck, but for some people like the youngsters from this movie who came from the poor families from the rural without proper education, it is a matter of life and death and injustice. I won't be surprised if international remake are made. It won this year's Indian Academy Awards in the three categories including the supporting actor which was one of the important cop roles. So I won't be surprised either if it was picked to represent India for the 2017 Oscars.
This is a Kollywood film, but watching it feels like a some dark tone Korean crime-drama- thriller. I have seen some of Indian cop films, but so far this one was the best when it comes to the realism yet not depicted them in a good way. I highly recommend it, but don't expect a genuine screenplay with a grand twist. It makes you feel how the innocence was taken away from the poor by the people with power, really heartbreaking.
9/10
