Chakravyuh

Cast: Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Manoj Bajpai, Om Puri, Esha Gupta, Anjali Patil
Director: Prakash Jha

What do you do when you want to project an age long serious national issue, with its all shades of grey, because over the period of time, stark black and white have ceased to exist? What do you do to make it interesting enough to make the audience invest their time and money and also keep it respectable enough so that the pain, fear and dilemma of lakhs of Indians concerned with it don’t take a backseat in the name of sleaze and humour? YOU MAKE ‘CHAKRAVYUH’.

And how apt the name is. No beginning, nor end, just an ever going battle between fellow Indians, spreading fear and hatred amongst them, costing several Indian lives every year, most of whom take a bullet and/or undergo torture purely out of duty, without any personal greed or agenda! This is the present day scenario of Naxalite or Maowadi infected India.

Prakash Jha has done a superb job of showing the ISSUE from all possible perspectives i.e. that of the maowadis, the government, the police, the military, the tribals and the MNCs. He is right when he says that the movie is ‘not entertaining but engaging’.

We, the urban population, should definitely see it to realize how futile our own preferences and how petty our own issues are in the wide canvas of the nation as a whole. Actually it is not just a movie, but a ‘Social Service’. It may not much affect the current scenario, but will definitely provide much required awareness in the upcoming generation of aforesaid perspective holders. And that will make a difference.

With every new movie, Arjun Rampal and Abhay Deol are coming across as pretty strong actors. Manoj Bajpai and Om Puri are as per expectation. Esha Gupta is OK. But the surprise package is the new actress, Anjali Patil, a gold medalist from NSD , who has sunk in her teeth so deep into the character that it is difficult to realize that she is just acting. Body language, dialect, appearance, nonchalance, aggression – everything is just perfect. She defines perfect casting and also reminds you of Smita Patil! A long scene between Arjun and Abhay needs special mention, wherein the two best friends argue about their different ideologies i.e. taking the side of the Maowadis Vs. taking the side of the Government. The scene has the required impact and Abhay is a strong passive actor.