Revolver Rani (25 Apr 2014)

Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Vir Das, Piyush Mishra, Zakir Hussain, Kumud Mishra, Pankaj Saraswat

Director: Sai Kabir

Watching the movie ‘Revolver Rani’ will generate two distinct sentiments in you. First – Sheer applause for Kangana Ranaut for daring to take up such a role and successfully managing to look ugly, agile, psychotic, as well as a fashion enthusiast, in all the frames. Second – Though Sai Kabir has done an ok enough directorial job, you do miss the chiseled rustic take of a maverick like Anurag Kashyap.

Given the backdrop of Chambal, Madhya Pradesh, the movie starts with a political tussle between a local politician and ‘Alka’ aka Kangana, both of whom aspire to become MLA and as per the thumb rule of the land, feel free to display and use muscle power and firearms as and when they feel like. Characterization of ‘Alka’ is rather unclear. Most you can make out is that, she is a bold dacoit type woman who had her first tete-a-tete with a firearm at the age of seven! She is brought up and mentored by her maternal uncle ‘Balli’, who ably guides her with a shrewd mindset and loves the idea of winning the election more than he loves his niece! He has absolute no patience for anyone or anything that may come in its way, including his niece’s love life or motherhood.

It goes without saying, that Kangana Ranaut has acted differently and excellently, very much like a la Vidya Balan in ‘Dirty Picture’. She is confidant, uninhibited and never tries to step outside the character to justify the insecurities of a leading heroine. Piyush Mishra (Balli), as ever has done an excellent job. In fact, he is the only one in the film who displays depth of character. Vir Das has done an ok job of the role of a toy-boy turned love interest of the protagonist, who ever smilingly dances to her wishes for his personal ambition and monetary interest. This is his first attempt without funny lines. Zakir Hussain and others have done well too. Story narration and editing leave a lot to be desired. Even the background score could have been much better. However, the opening score by Usha Uthup is nice and well sets the mood of the film.

Inspite of good storyline, star cast and performance, this movie watching experience seems incomplete, primarily because the genre of the film is unclear. The movie starts as a South style action flick with oodles of attitude and panache and you really look forward to see the treatment given to such a subject by a leading Bollywood actress. But then out of nowhere, the feisty protagonist turns soft and confused and you are left thinking with a sinking heart that the ‘stylish victory’ at the end that you were so sure of will definitely not happen and you will be required to make peace with one of the stereotyped Bollywood film endings!