Review: Up for a surprise

Film: Baabarr
Cast: Soham, Om Puri, Mithun Chakraborty, Urvashi Sharma
Director: Ashu Trikha
Rating: ***

Every once in a while, you find yourself surprised by a movie. Baabarr is such an experience, at least till mid-point. It’s authentic, true to its milieu, a dark, gritty, violent view of lawless middle India.

When a policeman investigating a crime asks 12-year-old Baabarr his name, the child looks him in the eye and says, ‘What’s yours?’ He’s street-smart and seething at all too young an age. We are never sure what makes him so angry and violent, but he turns these traits into his trade and grows into a feared gangster.

Set in the reality-inspired neighbourhood of Amanganj, circa 2004, when Baabarr’s reign was at its peak, Baabarr is shot in real locations in Lucknow. It’s based on some excellent dialogues, locations, and casting.

The grainy feel works and the camera is like another character through whom you are watching events unfold in a neighbourhood besieged by gang wars. There are gangsters below layers of gangsters, corrupt cops taking on upright senior officers, there are nautch girls and abiding wives, and there is the might of the gun.

This is UP of anger, frustration, communal tension, territorialism. It’s that part of the country where everyone carries a gun and shoots in the air in jubilation at weddings. It’s a region where crime thrives.

A gripping start is wasted as the ‘second-half syndrome’ strikes and the plot winds around like a corkscrew. More cops, more gangsters, politicians and family, more killings, shootings and beatings, and the first-half advantage is lost, worsened by the incorrect use of music, which almost attempts to compensate for some editing lapses and weak acting. As the lead, Soham fails to create a new Bhiku Mhatre.

The structure is one the audience is familiar with — the Shakespearean tragedy format previously seen in Satya, Maqbool and Omkara. However, the story takes too long to consolidate. On the upside, the film has good production values. Kudos to the director for some excellent casting.

Om Puri as the corrupt local cop is excellent, Chakraborty as an encounter specialist finally plays a role befitting his age and experience. Sushant Singh makes an impact in a limited role as Baabarr’s arch rival. This could have been a UP-based Satya, but it lets you down with a tiresome, noisy second half. But for director Trikha (Alag, Deewanapan), this is a career high.