Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Sujoy Ghosh, RealTV & Netflix.
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh, Tanveer Ghani.
Badla (revenge) is a gripping whodunit with a big sting in its tail!
This Hindi-language film (with English subtitles) is a polished thriller that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat. Vengeance is a common saga that requires sharp implementation and adroitness. This succeeds in Badla because of skillful acting and clever direction.
India’s legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan gives a polished performance as the prestigious lawyer, Badal Gupta, who is hired to defend Naina Sethi (played brilliantly by Pannu). She is spot-on in her character as a young, dynamic entrepreneur who finds herself locked in a hotel room with the corpse of her dead lover, Arjun (Tony Luke).
Her lawyer, Jimmy (Manav Kaul) hires prestigious defence attorney Gupta to defend her, working together to find out what actually happened. Interwoven into the plotline is the disappearance of another man, Sunny Singh Toor (Antonio Aakeel), after a car crash.
His parents are an ageing theatre-loving couple, who live in a home in the woods. They are played by Amrita Singh as Rani Kaur Toor, an aggrieved mother, who has nothing to lose, and Tanveer Ghani as Nirmal ‘Nimbi’ Singh Toor.
Uncovering the real chain of events that led to abrupt bloodshed and the loss of two lives, one on a remote forest road, the other in a hotel room not far from the spot is like walking a tightrope. It’s a crafty search for alibis and expedient twisting of facts.
Badla places focus on the questions of retribution and guilt, engrossing you in its manifold twists and turns. The more the truth is untangled, the more convoluted it becomes. It’s a cat-and-mouse game between one who knows the truth and the other who only knows bits and pieces.
The real reason why the film comes together is the rapport between Pannu and Bachchan, who have both worked together in Pink. However, the dynamics of their relationship is totally new in Badla.
Ghosh (Kahaani, Kahaani 2) is very much at ease at the helm of this multi-layered whodunit. What’s fascinating is the director’s version frequently cites ideas and dictates from the Mahabharata, one of two Sanskrit Indian epics.
The references to Lord Krishna, Arjuna, Draupadi, Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya are made in the course of the film’s central encounter between Gupta, who has never lost a case in a 40-year career, and Naina, a murder suspect, a cornered woman on the brink of a catastrophe.