Spoilers ahead…
For those of us who wondered if Vishal Bhardwaj’s spectacular script (along with Sreekar Prasad’s needle-sharp cutting) was largely responsible for how terrific Talvar was, there’s some affirmation in Meghna Gulzar’s follow-up, Raazi. This isn’t a bad film by any means — and any India-Pakistan drama, especially one set in 1971, that steers clear of jingoistic chest-thumping needs to be applauded. One of the film’s highlights is the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy song, Ae watan — staged (in a school ceremony) in a manner that celebrates patriotism on both sides of the border. But the staging itself feels fake, a little too… aware. It’s not just the laughable fact that a boy who could barely croak out the words now sings like Rafi. It’s that a filmmaker from an older era of Hindi cinema would have made us look past this boy and his near-magical transformation, because the emotion of the moment would have grabbed us. When you feel, you don’t think as much. Today’s filmmakers think more than they feel, and these melodramatic contrivances ring hollow.
Meghna’s sensibility is subtle. Even when a bomb goes off, she doesn’t amp up the drama, choosing instead to focus on a face that registers the horror. Another lovely scene cuts from a dying husband to a wife who’s asking the cook to have dinner ready because saab said he’s coming home early. But this tonality cannot exist in a vacuum. It has to seep into the entire film — not just in bits. I sat up during an early moment when Hidayat Khan (Rajit Kapur), an Indian spy from Kashmir, reveals that he has a lung tumour. It’s not cigarettes, he sighs. “Shaayad zindagi ke kash kuch lambe liye.” (Maybe I’ve inhaled a little too much of life.) But this poetry doesn’t pervade through the other lines, and it appears as though the director stumbled upon her father’s song in Hu Tu Tu and decided the words sounded cool. (Itna lamba kash lo yaaro dam nikal jaye / Zindagi sulgao yaaro, gham nikal jaye.)
Raazi chugs along perfunctorily, steadying itself after an awful setup. A completely needless framing device lays it on thick, with an address to the armed forces about the unknown people who helped India win wars. Then we meet Hidayat Khan’s daughter, Sehmat (Alia Bhatt). Without asking her, Hidayat Khan decides she will continue his dangerous work. (“What I couldn’t do, she will do,” he says later, echoing the father from Dangal.) Does this college-going girl balk at what’s being asked of her — marrying a Pakistani named Iqbal (Vicky Kaushal) and relaying secrets back home? There’s a shot where Sehmat seems to be thinking about it, but when her father comes in and says maybe it’s too much to expect of her, she delivers a robotic speech about how his blood courses through her veins. Maybe she just saw Manoj Kumar’s Upkar! Or maybe it’s her name, which means acquiescent, agreeing.
We get to know just enough of Sehmat that’s needed for the script. Was Sehmat a fangirl of that new chap, Rajesh Khanna? Did she try on the Sadhana cut? Did she have a crush on a boy in college? Does she have any thoughts about Kashmir, with respect to the rest of India? Who cares? But we do get to know she likes Hindustani music — because that trait will come in useful to define Iqbal as a considerate man, when he buys her a Bade Ghulam Ali Khan LP. The scene also has a patriotic undertone — even in Pakistan, Sehmat listens to Hindustani classical music. It’s scripting by the numbers. (1) Sehmat’s friend calls her a scaredy-cat — so we know later how tough this mission was. (2) We see Sehmat rescuing a squirrel from becoming roadkill — so that, later, when she makes roadkill of a man who’s on to her, we know what must have gone through her. (3) The friend tells us (through dialogue) that Sehmat is amazing at memorizing numbers — so later, we see… how amazing she is at memorizing numbers.
Meghna and co-writer Bhavani Iyer (the screenplay is based on Calling Sehmat, by Harinder Sikka) don’t take any chances that we might actually think through some things, figure it out for ourselves. It’s hilarious how a rookie like Sehmat manages to do so much snooping right under the noses of some of Pakistan’s top army men (though some of these scenes do carry a bit of tension). Her minder’s voice-over helpfully instructs her — and spoon-feeds us. “Sabke aane jaane ka time yaad karna,” we hear. (Remember at what times people come and go.) We see Sehmat looking at her wristwatch. The voiceover reiterates a point about a poison. We see Sehmat administering that poison. Somewhere, Vishal Bhardwaj is surely chuckling.
The most important thread in this type of film is the emotional one. What does it mean for a young girl to offer not just her life (for there’s no guarantee she’ll make it back alive), but her body? The script smooths over the ickiness of this situation by making Iqbal the sweetest, kindest man in the history of mandom. But this creates another knot that isn’t satisfactorily explored either. Everyone in that family is so nice. (You really feel for Iqbal when he asks Sehmat if there was ever anything between them.) Sehmat is betraying the trust of some really good-hearted people, who, like her, are only doing what’s best for their country. The film is so concerned with the procedural logistics that this emotional conflict isn’t explored in a way that makes us feel a twinge. In Dil Se, the Manisha Koirala character questions if they are right in using people who are so good. Sehmat gets an outburst towards the end, but by then, it’s too late. She’s questioning something that’s already done and dusted. It would have added to her actions if she’d done the questioning while doing them, if she’d hesitated even once during her various killings.
Jaideep Ahlawat is brilliant as Sehmat’s trainer/minder, and it’s in a scene with him that we sense the emotional stakes. After her training, Sehmat asks him if he thinks she can pull it off. He says yes, but there’s no triumph in his eyes — only sorrow. He knows — as she doesn’t yet — what is being asked of her, what he is asking of her. Instead of focusing on these beats — as I thought a “sensitive” filmmaker like Meghna would — she dips into Old Hindi Cinema constructs like Iqbal slipping a pair of anklets on Sehmat’s feet. Again, it’s only because it’s going to be useful later — when this very act of love turns into the knife-stab in Vicky’s back. And the way the family retainer is introduced, with glowering eyes, leaves us in little doubt that he’s going to be a thorn in Sehmat’s side. I thought the film might surprise us by showing he’s a spy, too (his roots lie in India) — but this is too straight a narrative for that, and perhaps this is how it was in the book.
I’m happy Raazi is a hit. We need more heroine-driven films to work broadly — and not just in a few metro pockets. But the film is broad, too, as is Alia Bhatt’s performance, though she is a victim of the writing and filmmaking. She nails the hesitation when her trainer asks her a question — the split-second reaction comes off like a reflex, and you need to be some kind of actor to be able to pull it off. And I liked how the camera lingered hesitantly around her after her first killing, without exactly zooming in to her face. But the film is too reliant on her reaction shots. Every other scene she plays is practically a thought bubble: “PHEW!” “CLOSE SHAVE!” “DODGED A BULLET!” And for the first time, Alia feels hammy in places, doing things because she’s asked to do them and not because the character is in that place. Her lost-little-girl screen presence is a major part of why we respond to Sehmat, but maybe this film needed someone older, someone more of a… woman.
Copyright ©2018 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Piyush Pratik
May 27, 2018
Did you think Meghna Gulzar was trying to go ‘mainstream’ with Raazi, after the ultra-realistic and hard hitting Talvar? I thought she was trying to make inroads into proper commercial cinema with Raazi.
LikeLiked by 2 people
MANK
May 27, 2018
You nailed my thoughts with every word in the review
i didnt like the film. it was neither here nor there. neither a satisfying drama nor a pulse pounding spy thriller. Gulzar was a great writer and a good director. unfortunately, Meghna is neither. i am disappointed by the fact that It had such a juicy premise and such a meaty role for a lead actress, but the potential has been so recklessly squandered. i expected a much better performance from Alia
the recruitment, training and spying scenes of sehmat was laughably bad. something that would work better in a masala film, say how vijay becomes Don and enters his lair to spy for the cops. But in this sort of film, it comes across as amateurish. Hell ,even Preity Zinta in Anil Sharma’s Hero came across a as a much more convincing spy
The pakistanis may have been portrayed as good people (for a change), but man they come across as so dumb. we have members of a family dying left right and center and these top army officials suspect everyone except the new arrival in their family from across the border.
I think the main reason for the success of the film is due to the patriotic angle of the story in a war which we won. Secondly, Alia is becoming a bankable star which is really good. i like watching her.
i dont agree this film needed someone older, its just that she is rather miscast. Internalising a role is not her forte. she needs a certain amount of externalising to put across her performance which was not much possible here. She also seemed to be badly directed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
vaibhavmunjal
May 27, 2018
This is by far best review of Raazi that I have read. Every problem that I have with the film, is very clearly and carefully articulated in this post.This article also reminds of something which Anup Pandey once said: ‘We are a society so desperate for revolution that we are hailing even half-decent films as excellent.’
I’ll say this again. Calling Raazi an ‘excellent’ film is an insult to the excellence of ‘Talvar’.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sahir.
May 27, 2018
A lot of what you say makes sense, but I don’t know if I agree wholly. I did wonder at how Sehmat does her snooping, leaving fingerprints EVERYWHERE! And I also didn’t really buy the set-up. It’s all so rushed; Hidayat shunting Sehmat into spying, her “watan kay aagay kuchh naheen” speech, etc. etc. But I did like the Pakistan sections. And I will fight anybody who says that the film never depicts any kind of struggle for Sehmat, any hesitation or trauma or trepidation or guilt. Look at that pre-interval scene, where she breaks down in the loo. Or her face when she rides over the manservant (again, fingerprints on the steering-wheel, though?). I thought the film brought out Sehmat’s conflict and the enormity of what’s being asked of her very well. Thank god it didn’t become chest-thumping jingoism.
Films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Raazi and Happy Bhag Jayegi are all important to show that India or Pakistan, WE ARE ALL THE SAME PEOPLE.
And, perhaps most importantly, I’m very pleased that Raazi is making the money it is – not just because it’s driven by a woman (and directed by one, and written by two), but because the ONLY star attached to the film is a woman. (Dear Zindagi, Padmaavat – these were also led by women, but there were also significant male stars around, too.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
May 27, 2018
MANK: we have members of a family dying left right and center and these top army officials suspect everyone except the new arrival in their family from across the border.
LOL! I wonder if this is how it is in the book. I was rolling my eyes every minute someone died 😀
Internalising a role is not her forte. she needs a certain amount of externalising to put across her performance which was not much possible here. She also seemed to be badly directed.
I agree she was badly directed — but can you explain “she needs a certain amount of externalising to put across her performance”?
I thought this was a wholly externalised performance, flaring nostrils and all. Almost everything was telegraphed to the audience through her face.
Sahir: Look at that pre-interval scene, where she breaks down in the loo.
I liked that too, and it’s what I meant by this line: “And I liked how the camera lingered hesitantly around her after her first killing, without exactly zooming in to her face.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
ramitbajaj01
May 27, 2018
“Was Sehmat a fangirl of that new chap, Rajesh Khanna? Did she try on the Sadhana cut? Did she have a crush on a boy in college? Does she have any thoughts about Kashmir, with respect to the rest of India?”
At least the novel answers some of these questions.
“It’s hilarious how a rookie like Sehmat manages to do so much snooping”
On this front (and many other fronts), the novel is much worse, which is written in a very filmy way. Every scene is a crowd-pleaser, with complete disregard to the consistencies of the characters.
“Somewhere, Vishal Bhardwaj is surely chuckling”
But then Talvar didn’t even make half the money that Raazi has made. Would classy cinema always find less patrons than the mainstream cinema? (Black Panther earned more money than all the oscar nominees of this year combined.)
“Iqbal the sweetest, kindest man in the history of mandom”
True. At first night, choosing to sleep separate is one thing, but the guy didn’t even eye the girl! Either don’t take us into their bedroom (as in the novel), or if you are then please be realistic, Meghna ji.
“Sehmat gets an outburst towards the end, but by then, it’s too late”
It was off-putting to hear her scream- ‘mujhe ghar jana hai, mujhe ghar jana hai’. It felt so out of character.
“the way the family retainer is introduced… perhaps this is how it was in the book.”
yes, this bit is taken verbatim from the book.
LikeLiked by 1 person
ramitbajaj01
May 27, 2018
Has the director spoken about the title anywhere? How did it come to be? Is it a reflection on Sehmat’s agreement whether or not she is fully raazi for the job? If yes, then why couldn’t the title have been Sehmat, which means just the same? It would have also justified why a person is the center of the movie and not war or any other aspect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
sanjana
May 27, 2018
Film has some scenes to get critics’ approval and some to please the crowds. The latter will get 100 percent satisfaction. So 100 crore plus is assured. And awards are assured.
LikeLike
ramitbajaj01
May 27, 2018
By the way, does anyone have any idea how the films of Asghar Farhadi fare at Iran’s box office vis-a-vis Iran’s mainstream movies? Is Asghar Farhadi able to be classy and massy at the same time?
LikeLiked by 1 person
MANK
May 27, 2018
I thought this was a wholly externalised performance, flaring nostrils and all. Almost everything was telegraphed to the audience through her face.
Yes, that was what i was getting at. her performance was at cross-purposes with the character she was playing. this character required internalising as a lot of the stuff deals with her internal struggles. but what she is good at is externalising a character. So in something like Highway – which i think is her best performance – she portrayed a lively character and has this phenomenal monologue detailing childhood abuse that sets up her brilliant performance. here she has no such opportunities.
LikeLike
MANK
May 27, 2018
If yes, then why couldn’t the title have been Sehmat
Thats much more difficult to understand. i think they put Raazi because its a much more simpler term than sehmat and it means the same.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anu Warrier
May 27, 2018
It’s not that I don’t agree with the points that you (and everyone else, it seems 🙂 ) raise, but I must confess to having liked the movie – a lot. I know there are flaws – the squirrel, for instance. It was all too twee, and it doesn’t help that Alia still looks like she’s 12. Yes, I do wish they hadn’t ‘told’ as well as ‘shown’.
However, while I was watching, I completely bought into the experience.
I did think that they showed Alia’s guilt very well indeed – especially the part where she breaks down when she asks for the poison to kill the ‘cat’. And later, her expression when her sister-in-law asks the cook to keep the food ready for her husband.
And I do think that the reason no one suspects Sehmat is because she is Hidayat Khan’s daughter – and he was supposed to be spying for Pakistan.
I’m not saying it’s a great film, just that I enjoyed it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sahir.
May 27, 2018
brangan: But what did you mean, then, by “It would have added to her actions if she’d done the questioning while doing them, if she’d hesitated even once during her various killings”? How could she have hesitated before the first killing? The manservant was rushing to tell on her… she’d been trained to bump off anyone who came in her way. As for her brother-in-law, she gave him a little while with his snooping, but when he got dangerously close (though he did not know it yet), she again had no choice. That’s what I thought.
LikeLike
Vivek narain
May 28, 2018
Heroine driven films are passe, welcome Velamma the porn toon queen. She has the most sensational body and ***** that are a designer’s dream. She has no enemies and cavorts with lecherous men of all hues and ages, pakistani or indian she has ample space for all and what’s more she doesn’t need a trainer like Sehmat does.
LikeLike
brangan
May 28, 2018
ramitbajaj01: Thanks so much for the book-to-film comparisons. Sounds like it wasn’t that great a read.
LikeLike
Pavan
May 28, 2018
Vivek narain: Strange, strange idea. Sounds like a dakshin-ised and bond-ised Savitha Bhabhi…
LikeLike
ravenus1
May 28, 2018
Some of my impressions from Raazi:
In a time where all kinds of movies ill-advisedly attempt non-linear narratives with timeline jumps, Raazi is one film that could have actually benefited by such a treatment. They could have started the film with the marriage, and the girl going alone into foreign territory, vulnerable and beset by fears. Then as she gradually starts her mission they could have given brief glimpses of the training she received and is now putting into practice in the face of real danger. But no, gets an entire Rocky-style training montage with rah-rah song backdrop. At the end of the montage she asks her hardass trainer (Jaideep Ahlawat, an actor that deserves better) if he thinks she can do the mission, and he replies that he is confident in her. That moment pretty much deflates any possible tension for the massive chunk of movie-time that is yet to come.
The other aspect is the emotional conflict of the girl “betraying” her new relations. There is never a true sense of bond-building. These are the people Alia’s character must come to rely on as emotional anchor in a strange place. It is the sense of familial belonging with these Pakistanis that must generate the turbulence in her mind about her actions. But almost always she seems to be playing the spy role, and her actions, even when she wins hearts by training schoolkids to perform a patriotic song, are viewed purely from that perspective.
More disastrous is the casting of Vickey Kaushal as her Paki husband. The marital relationship between the nubile girl and a chivalrous military gentleman should have been a lynch-pin of romantic passion and emotional turbulence. Alas Kaushal comes across a modern day Bharat Bhushan, a pitiable wallflower. The chemistry between them is colder than an ice-lolly in an Antarctic winter. When the moment of open conflict comes, you feel little empathy for either one.
Alia Bhatt’s performance falls victim to bad writing and direction, consisting in large measure of breathing open-mouthed like a fish against latched doors. She gets a fine climactic outburst in which the young girl inside of her spy wants desperately to go home, but they have to spoil that moment too with a soggy epilogue no one asked for.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Anu Warrier
May 28, 2018
Sahir, I think you and I are the only people who thoroughly enjoyed this movie. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
May 28, 2018
ravenus1: Alia Bhatt’s performance falls victim to bad writing and direction, consisting in large measure of breathing open-mouthed like a fish against latched doors
LOL. But seriously, I couldn’t understand this. Even if we say Talvar was largely a product of its screenplay, it was still a very well-directed film. There was a lot of good staging, good performances… I cannot explain the relative tackiness in this film. Every choice is so generic and bland. Unless, Meghna consciously decided to go all-out mainstream, which I can’t quite see as the case.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sahir.
May 28, 2018
Ahaha, Anu, it certainly seems like it. I didn’t balk too much at the framing either… I didn’t mind wordless Sanjay Suri there. I think what really made me happy was the portrayal of the Pakistanis as humans, equal to Sehmat, simply stuck on the side she is fighting against. They were none of them monsters, and this I was very glad about.
(I think I’m quite willing to praise a film for its objectives/intentions, regardless of whether it fulfilled them satisfactorily.)
LikeLike
ramitbajaj01
May 28, 2018
“Unless, Meghna consciously decided to go all-out mainstream, which I can’t quite see as the case.”
Sir, Dharma Productions make only mainstream movies. Moreover, there is a nationalism angle. Then there is Alia Bhatt. Spying. Villainous servant. Love angle. Songs. Fake tension. Dumb supporting characters. Pregnancy. Bomb. Murder. I, therefore, guess that it’s an out and out mainstream movie. It is meant to be watched by a large number of people. But curious to know sir, why you think it’s not quite a mainstream movie.
“Every choice is so generic and bland”
Blame the novel for this. Or perhaps blame the filmmakers who bought into this novel. I guess Sikka had only one line plot- Indian spy married in Pakistan helped save Vikrant. That’s it. He gathered all his Bollywood knowledge (which apparently is only mainstream), and “pulled shit out of thin air,” as Dalton Trumbo would describe such a story. Raazi, in fact, does a good job of cutting down on some of the silliness of Calling Sehmat. [The director has said in one of the interviews that years ago, a different producer had approached her father with this novel. But Gulzar saab declined to helm the project saying there is no movie in it. Such a wise person!]
I consider it a disrespect to tell a true story narrated in such a dishonest way, adding frivolous and implausible fodder around it- you spy and bomb in Pakistan and yet you manage to cross the border with your head held high, a top Indian intelligence officer going in Pakistan for the operation against Pakistan- only Bollywood can conjure such things, your in-house servant has died in mysterious circumstances and you are not even interested in full-fledged investigation- this is a good example of lazy writing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Vivek narain
May 28, 2018
Pavan: Velamma is incomparable, infact she’s the tops. When you’ve lived long enough, you recognise the epitome of desire whenever it arrives on the scene, and then you feel satiated, life fulfilled, and you don’t care for any even better personality. When you’ve seen Daniel Craig or Jason Statham or Vyjayanthimala or heard Rafi and Kishore and Mukesh and Asha or read Chase, your gratified heart tells you that excellence and prodigiousness is a very rare occurence. Velamma belongs to the same ilk, always raazi, ready to kill by her figure alone, and if she does seduce by her eyes it’s more of a slaughter than seduction.
LikeLike
brangan
May 28, 2018
ramitbajaj: Sir, Dharma Productions make only mainstream movies.
No, I meant the slightly off-beat kind of film like Kapoor and Sons, which has songs and stars and yet has a delicate texture far removed from the mainstream. I thought this would be something like that — not exactly, but the tone I thought would be fringe-mainstream like Kapoor and Sons.
LikeLiked by 1 person
ramitbajaj01
May 28, 2018
Oh with heavy star cast and ladki beautiful, I was considering Kapoor & Sons a mainstream movie, but it isn’t exactly so. I get your point now.
LikeLike
steadymeandering
May 28, 2018
Fringe – Mainstream is an interesting terminology.
I knew something wasn’t quite right with the movie and now after reading your review I know what. Still a decent film with enough tension and good setting and no outright jingoism.
LikeLike
Anu Warrier
May 28, 2018
Apparently, the real ‘Sehmat’ did go into Pakistan as a newly-wed into a family of military people, did spy on them, did manage to pass on information about the attack on INS Vikrant, and did kill the family’s faithful servant. She wasn’t by any chance a trained spy, so how did she manage to escape detection and make her way back to India?
A case of life being stranger than fiction? After all, as Shakespeare put it: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 🙂
LikeLike
brangan
May 29, 2018
Anu Warrier: But all that is just the plot. As a longtime reader, surely you know by now that this blog is more concerned about how all this is depicted than just what is depicted. 😛
LikeLike
Srinivas R
May 29, 2018
Off Topic
Is there a chance you will write anything about Savithri Biopic…
LikeLiked by 1 person
ramitbajaj01
May 29, 2018
“A case of life being stranger than fiction?”
I guess in this case perhaps the real life wasn’t strange enough for the story writers, so they cooked up masala elements around it. If only they believed that even everydayness could be just as riveting!
LikeLike
Vidya Ramesh
May 29, 2018
Ok I liked the movie too Anu..I know that the movie has its problems but I liked it as a whole even with all the Alia Bhatt over acting in parts..give the girl a break people she is better than those loosu ponnu s in Tamil cinema! I also had a feeling BR would roll his eyes at the parts where he said he did! The movie was like thayir sadam ok.. made you feel good. You expected zafrani pulao BR that was the problem 🙂 I have not watched talvar so was ok with the thayir sadam.
LikeLike
Anu Warrier
May 29, 2018
Interestingly, there’s going to be a movie on another female spy – a trained one, this time. Noor Inayat Khan, who spied for the allies during the WW. Radhika Apte has been pencilled in to play Noor.
LikeLiked by 2 people
MANK
May 29, 2018
There is no question about Alia’s talent, But the problem is, she is still more of a niche actress, just like Vidya, Parineethi or Anushka, they all have their comfort zones, once they are out of it , their flaws get exposed.Remember a review where Brangan called Parineethi the next great hindi film actress, she has now completely disappeared from the scene.
this film reminded me of the recent Red sparrow. Anybody seen it. it was again a very boring spy film with a miscast Jennifer Lawrence – who can be called the Alia of hollywood – in the lead role
LikeLike
Shalini
May 29, 2018
@Anu – I liked “Raazi” too. Not for the plot tensions or the performances or the staging, all of which I compared most unfavorably to Hitchcock’s “Notorious” while watching, but for the oh, so beautiful period clothes – especially the Kashmiri embroidery. Strange, BR makes no mention of them in the review. 🙂
As for the word “Raazi,” it also means “one who has secrets” making it an apt title for a movie about a spy, methinks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
smokedustandhaze
May 29, 2018
I watched this movie with several family members who absolutely loved, and I didn’t want to be a killjoy so I restricted myself to one criticism (oh the spoon-feeding!). So I’ve been vigorously nodding my head at this review for the last five minutes.
This movie should have worked for me but almost everything that I could have liked turned out to disappoint. I enjoy spy stories and I like small-scale storytelling against a historical backdrop. Also, I’m always excited about movies with interesting female leads. One of my favorite shows on TV – The Americans – is about the life of a Cold-War spy couple and their conflicting loyalties towards family, their home country and their own principles. It manages to be serious, yet exciting and darkly funny. Granted that TV just has a lot more space to do things slowly and patiently, I couldn’t help contrasting the movie with this show.
I’m so frustrated with how Raazi cares much more about advancing its not-exactly-sophisticated plot than about constructing an engaging character arc. I love Alia Bhatt and I refuse to believe that she is at fault here. What could she do with a character sketch that went something like : 1) you love your country, 2) you kill people while working for your country and then you feel bad and you cry every time, 3) you accomplish your main mission and conveniently grow disillusioned with your job at the same time, 4) you break down again, 5) you find out you are pregnant because there are consequences to being a woman spy (and movie people are always extremely fertile) and then you live your life sitting by a window while your son joins the army. Wait, did we say that you had started to question how innocent people are hurt in war? Lol, that was just a phase.
The only thing I did not have trouble accepting was how she managed to snoop around for so long. Apart from bring Hidayat Khan’s daughter, I think that her innocent little girl appearance worked for her. Like how there are examples of real-life serial criminals with boyish good looks and pleasant personalities: their crimes went undetected for a long time because the people around them never suspected them and overlooked odd facts that kept piling up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Apu
May 29, 2018
I have not seen Raazi and was waiting for this review. The only reason (other than the fact that it is very difficult for me to get a chance to watch a non-english/child friendly movie in a theatre) was the fact that I was not sure how the emotional part, especially that between the good-gentlemanly husband and a young wife would be handled, because I read an interview that said that the real Sehmat came back to India and gave birth to her son who later served in Indian Defense forces.
Sometimes our prejudices and beliefs does not allow us to surrender to a movie, and that was my problem. Maybe I should not have overthought because it seems like there were hardly any emotional chords?
LikeLiked by 1 person
amithjc
May 30, 2018
The movie started off with promise. Literally. That aerial shot featuring the INS Viraat was spectacular and also set the tone for a no nonsense thriller. It was also one of the very few shots in the movie that was colored ( or exposed?) adequately. She did manage to ruin it though by placing the same shot towards the climax.
An average dinner conversation at Walter White’s residence ratchets up much more tension than what Ms. Gulzar has managed here with potentially explosive material (not the book which I haven’t read). Both had Ricin, though. For me the most clumsy passage in the film was – Sehmat chasing Abdul which was inter-cut with Morse code being decrypted back home. It was just so loud that I couldn’t help but wonder how Vishal Bharadwaj would have staged that scene.
@brangan : Meghna’s sensibility is subtle.
At times, yes. The scene where Sehmat meets her contacts at the “Bazaar” was anything but subtle. I mean they really had to cut back to the projector room for each one of them. That was the sign of a filmmaker who was not very sure of her own craft or the sensibility of her audience. It’s extremely tempting to blame Dharma Prodns. but even outside of Kapoor and Sons and Phantom Co Productions (Lunch Box etc), they have done some solid work. For all is misguided efforts, ADHM at least looked better. I’m not sure if it was the cinema I watched but more than once, the palette reminded me of a Prabhu Deva film. The sounds didn’t do much to help, either.
Amidst all this, I don’t think there was ever a chance for Alia to go low key. Still. I think she is one of the few actors who does heartbreak beautifully. Cinematic heartbreak, yes, but beautiful nonetheless. When she cries she looks absolutely unaware of the people around her. The scene where she learns of her fathers tumor was extremely effective because I didn’t particularly care for the man or the buildup up to that point and yet I was moved. With someone like Sonam Kapoor, you could almost see her physically trying not to think of the camera (including and especially in “Neerja”). As for Alia’s ability to “internalize” a role, we’d have to wait for her “Kahaani” or “Take Off” but I’m not sure any of her upcoming projects (the ones listed in Wikipedia, anyway) is going to help.
LikeLiked by 2 people
praneshp
May 30, 2018
@anu: count me in. There were weaknesses, but the choice to use the Ae Watan song the way they did was enough to balance it out for me. I thought it was a great watch,
LikeLike
Pratiek Sparsh Samantara
May 30, 2018
@ramitbajaj01: I thought about this too, but I think the change of title stands. “sehmat”, I think, just means agreeing to some proposition. Whereas “raazi” accords a tad more agency to doing xyz.
LikeLike
pessimist
May 30, 2018
Thanks for the review – captures why the movie was so mediocre, with at most a few decent scenes.
I’m fairly sceptical that this is based on a true story at all – its way too far-fetched. How would such a spy have escaped? And for her son to go in to the army is simple too convenient.
I think Harinder Sikka made it all up – who can question such a patriotic tale?
LikeLiked by 1 person
vrindaag
May 31, 2018
Spot on – finally a review about Raazi that makes sense. I’ve been waiting for this one a long time. After watching the film, I wrote one myself and then went on to read what others had to say. Was surprised to find that every single review praised the film highly and didn’t mention the flaws at all. So refreshing to read this review which calls out the film for what it is and doesn’t gloss over its many flaws. Here’s my own synopsis and review of the film.
There is much to like in Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi but the film suffers from overkill and contraption [Spoilers ahead! Please don’t read further in case you haven’t watched the movie and wish to watch it]
It opens with the scene of an army briefing session where a decorated general (played by Kanwaljeet Singh) is giving a speech about the many sacrifices made during the 1971 war to his cadets, presumably new joinees. The camera focusses on one of those cadets (played by Sanjay Suri) and we are left wondering why. The reason becomes clear at the fag end but is never really spelt out, which is all fine. Except that in a film which chooses to spell out the simplest of events, this omission seems a bit strange.
A few moments later, we are in 1971 Pakistan where another army general is addressing a room full of men in uniform about the unrest in East Pakistan. This is where we first meet the finest character in the film, Brigadier Syed (played by Shishir Sharma). Sharma is a TV veteran (having played father and sasur roles in several TV shows) but this is perhaps his first outing in a big budget Bollywood film. And what a mark he makes! Watch him in the scene where he trembles at first and then almost faints, after he has buried his elder son. While the treatment here is hardly original and the scene is almost a replica of Waheeda Rehman’s breakdown scene in rang de basanti, the acting here is marvellous. We will hopefully see Sharma in more such roles on the big screen.
Soon after, we are introduced to another important character, played by Rajit Kapur. He is an Indian Kashmiri who passes on covert information about Indian affairs to Brigadier Syed and the two share a warm, friendly relationship of such level that the Indian friend confides to his Pakistani friend about the terminal illness he is suffering from and asks for the latter’s son to be married to his daughter (there is an allusionary reference to the marriage proposal).
A few scenes later, we are in a Delhi University campus buzzing with student life. A squirrel is about to be crushed under a vehicle and a girl jumps to her rescue, almost risking her own life. Meet Sehmat (played by Alia Bhatt). This scene along with the next few scenes attempt to establish Sehmat as a soft, sensitive girl but the treatment here is totally devoid of subtlety. This portrayal comes across as forced and unnecessary and it’s also misaligned with the film’s major selling point: unlike our conventional understanding that spies are only men, women (who are often stereotyped as soft and sensitive) can be spies too and that too bloody good ones. To me, it seemed like the film was trying too hard to generate sympathy and appreciation for the lead character, as if telling us that this gentle girl is going to be turned into a hardened spy and you better start rooting for her right away. When you are faced with something like this in the first 15 minutes of a Meghna Gulzar film, the disappointment can hit hard and linger throughout marring even the stronger bits in the film.
After these introductory scenes with Sehmat, we move on to a few father-daughter scenes where Sehmat learns about her father’s audacious plan (to send her to Pakistan as an under-cover spy) and, after the initial shock, consents to playing her part even though her father begins to have second thoughts. Her quick acquiescence, we are told by Sehmat, stems from the deep rooted patriotism that runs in the family. There’s a lot of clunky dialogue here, like ‘agar ladki ko jasoos bankar bhejna galat hai toh ladkon ko fauj mein bhejna bhi galat hai.’
Thankfully, we quickly move on to the next important chapter: the training session sequence where Sehmat is given lessons in Spying 101 by an intelligence officer, Mir (played by Jaideep Ahlawat). Jaideep totally fits the part and his transformation into Mir’s bespactacled middle-aged man, with a freckled face and slicked hair, whose training methods teeter the fine line between aggression and abuse, is truly commendable. Even when Mir doesn’t speak, his watchful eyes command the viewer’s full attention, as he goes about eyeing Sehmat’s every move, and evaluating her gradual progress. In his eyes, we hear both silent condemnation for Sehmat’s flounderings and loud appreciation for her stoic determination. And this nuanced performance helps the film pick up pace and find its core, while we get an insight into the wired (physically) and hardwired (figuratively) world of intel officers, replete with hawk-eyed observations and cryptic conversations. Alia is brilliant too, conveying both Sehmat’s determination and nervousness, especially in the scene where she calls out Mir for his callousness and expresses all her bottled up anger at him by firing like a pro. In an otherwise terrific sequence, what doesn’t work is the first real conversation between Sehmat and Mir that comes at the end of the training session and involves Mir answering a question posed by Sehmat at the start of the training: ‘aapko lagta hai main ye kar sakti hoon?’ Mir replies: ‘mujhe yakeen hai tum ye kar sakti ho’, and we are back in clunky dialogue territory.
Soon after, the screen comes alive with the sounds of Dilbaro and we are in the midst of a Kashmiri wedding. There is a palpable sadness, as Sehmat and her parents struggle with the reality of her going away, not only as a married woman going to live in a new home in a foreign land, but also in a sense, as a soldier going to the battlefront. And the fact that they cannot openly show their sorrow and pain for the latter makes the mood all the more sombre. We also feel the excitement and nervousness of the groom, Iqbal (played with great elan by Vicky Kaushal) as he tentatively steps out of the car, looks around curiously trying to locate his wife-to-be (and perhaps, coming to terms with the fact that he is in enemy territory) and finally catches a glimpse of her in the window of her room. A little later, you also feel his confusion and helplessness as he sees Sehmat crying uncontrollably, first while saying goodbye to her family, and then all through the journey as she sits right beside him in the car but doesn’t seem to be present at all. Dilbaro acts as the perfect backdrop to the mix of emotions swirling between the two of them, as they make the long road journey from Sehmat’s home in Kashmir to Iqbal’s home in Pakistan, all the while oblivious to the gorgeous landscape unfolding before them. When the song ends, we find ourselves in a Pakistani home, peering into the private lives of people who look and talk just like us, as they welcome the new bride into their palatial army bungalow.
Brigadier Syed and his family are perfectly cast as a Pakistani family, living with the many privileges as well as the constant sense of threat, that army life offers in generous proportions. The only female member in the house, Iqbal’s sister-in-law, gives Sehmat a tour of the house and introduces her to the housestaff, one of whom is Abdul, an old-hand who has served the family for years and who shall prove to be Sehmat the spy’s biggest obstacle and eventual nemesis. He instantly becomes suspicious of Sehmat the new bride, as he meets her on her first night in the house. By the next morning, the suspicious has turned into full-blown revulsion, as he mildly chastises her for taking over his task of preparing breakfast for the family and trying to feed them paranthas instead of their everyday breakfast of toast with jam and butter. She realises that the sparring will do no good and backs off, as she remembers Mir’s lesson to not try to win approval early on, but to be patient and let it happen naturally even if it takes time. Her husband seems to have imbibed a similar lesson: on their first night together, he lets her take the bed while he himself retreats to a corner of the bedroom separated from the rest of the room by a partition. The sincerity with which he tells her that ‘hamare walid ne toh rishta kara diya par aapko mujhe janne mein time lagega aur mujhe aapko’ melts your heart. And get to know each other they do as they reveal their musical preferences – he likes Jazz while she is fond of Hindustani classical. They start spending their evenings together listening to music. In a touching scene, he brings her records of Hindustani classical music which they listen to together. In another moving scene, they exchange playful looks when he finds that his cigarette case has been packed with saunf and mishri. In a party at their bungalow, like new lovers, they steal glances at each other while trying to play the perfect hosts. Alia and Vicky look great together and perfectly fit the part of a married couple beginning to grow on each other.
As the romance brews so does the unfolding of Sehmat’s plan. She lays wires around the house, keeps track of visitors, stays on high alert during dinner table conversations that typically revolve around relations with India, and starts to pass on information to her handlers in India. She even manages to sneak into the Brigadier’s study and install bugs and almost gets caught by Abdul. It’s hard to not be impressed by the ingenuity with which Sehmat escapes several such close shave encounters but somehow Alia doesn’t make us feel that Sehmat is at real risk. And of course, we are expected to believe that a senior army officer’s house would not be routinely checked for surveillance devices. In real life, Sehmat’s cover would have been blown just the day after she lays wires around the house.
Everything comes across as a little too convenient in the way Sehmat’s plans play out, like how she teaches a song to the army school kids and takes extra classes at home for the kids who need more practice. This gives her the opportunity to spy on important army meetings being held in the house of one of those kids. It’s another matter if prying from a rooftop and sighting cars coming and going can help one gather any substantive intelligence. But the film doesn’t bother with such technicalities. One gets the impression that this sequence exists only as a prelude to the ‘ae watan’ song. And what a remarkable song it is! Penned by Gulzar, ‘ae watan’ is rich in its simplicity and has a charming innocence, enhanced by a chorus of children singing along.
Eventually, in a gripping sequence, Sehmat’s cover does get blown when Abdul spots the transmission device installed in her bathroom. He rushes out to inform the Brigadier, she runs after him, and in a spur of the moment decision, mows him down with a jeep. For a girl who once risked her life to save a squirrel from getting crushed under a vehicle, this is a phenomenal leap of character, but unfortunately, Alia’s acting doesn’t convey that transformation well enough and as a result her repeated agonizings over having committed this gruesome murder lack impact.
Post-interval, the action picks up a little as the elder brother dismisses the accident to be a hit-and-run case and, suspecting foul play, orders an investigation into the events leading up to Abdul’s accident. He finds the needle of suspicion pointing towards Sehmat too and even tells her so, only to see her freeze. That reaction left me a little bewildered because who in their right state of mind would stay silent and stare when pointedly told that there is a reason to suspect they may be involved in someone’s murder. Shortly after, Sehmat contacts her aides and we hear a conversation filled with dialogues like ‘billi panja maar rahi hai’, which somehow don’t flow naturally and come across as hammed. Then she commits a second murder (this time it’s her brother-in-law) and fails to convey the character’s angst yet again.
The confrontation scene between Iqbal and Sehmat is not tense enough; at no point of time do you feel that she will actually shoot him, or harm the kid whom she sort of abducts in an attempt to escape. It’s also a bit baffling how he concludes that she is guilty just on the basis that a ghungroo from her payal was found at the place where other incriminating evidence is found. Sure, that recovery makes a good case for suspicion but that it can lead him to pronounce her guilty is just laughable. The chase sequence that follows doesn’t work too well either and the so-called-suspense can be spotted from miles away. There is a clumsiness in the bomb explosion scene and Iqbal’s death doesn’t make much of an impact, which is why Sehmat’s breakdown scene, that comes right after, falls a bit flat. No doubt, you feel bad for Sehmat and all that she has been through but the contents of her speech make you wonder why she thinks Mir is to be blamed when she had voluntarily agreed to participate in the mission knowing fully the risks involved. Even here, Jaideep holds his own against Alia, as Mir, retaining his curious mix of steel and compassion, patiently hears out Sehmat and then tries to reason with her blaming it all on the brutalities of war.
Shortly after, we see Sehmat in a hospital room after she has found out that she is carrying Iqbal’s child. The film ends with a back shot of Sehmat and we see her sitting alone in a run-down house in the middle of nowhere. Cut to present-day, the last scene is a shot of the army briefing session that marked the opening of the film.
Overall, for me, the screenplay lacked tautness and depth and could have done with more thought and nuance (especially in some of the beginning and closing scenes).
LikeLike
brangan
May 31, 2018
vrindaag: Have you published this review on a blog or something? If you give me the URL, I can link to it in the comment — instead of the whole review being pasted here. Thanks.
LikeLike
vrindaag
May 31, 2018
Dear Mr Rangan – I am so sorry for cluttering this space. Didn’t realise that my review turned out to be so long. Unfortunately, I haven’t published this review anywhere. Please feel free to remove it from here. I realise it’s taking up too much space. I will work on an edited version and then post it here. Thank you.
LikeLike
brangan
May 31, 2018
No, that’s fine. Will just leave it here.
LikeLike
sach3
June 1, 2018
Why is no one talking about the weird way Alia delivered her dialogues. That poked me throughout the film and was frankly unbearable initially.
“Aapko dekh lia, ab ammi ko dekh le toh saans aaye”
“Mai toh vahin ki hu jahan mere gharvaale”
It is clearly bad/average direction for me. I mean, either go full way old school or stay with realism. The dialogues mostly did not match the settings.
Also, the heroic story and some bits in the movie were good. But other than that, we are just appreciating mediocrity, according to me.
P.S.- I LOVE ALIA. She is with ranbir now?!! Wooahh! 😍
LikeLike
Dr. Grossip
June 3, 2018
How would a Radhika Apte have done in this film opposite say, the Kahani guy? Their romantic passion would have been off the charts and made the emotional fervour of the film more palpable, I think. I am tired of Alia and her childish looks. To me, films are a visual medium and unfortunately, how you look does affect the type of roles you can believably pull off. Alia as a romantic lead just does not fit unless it is a movie set in a school and the person opposite to her looks like a young boy (say the Siddhartha guy from Comedy Circus) (a TV show in India famous for being Kapil Sharma’s launchpad). Radhika Apte, by contrast, is so sultry and sexy and such a fine actress. To me, she totally deserves all the mainstream roles that Alia and company seem to lap up. But then, this isn’t a terribly exciting time to be a viewer of Hindi movies anyways. I have shifted my base to regional films, regional/sub-continental TV shows and movies.
LikeLike
SharathC
July 17, 2018
One thing that was badly contrived was the way Iqbal discovers the identity of Sehmat. There could have been many other reasons why that piece of ‘golusu’ was in Abdul’s room and there wasn’t any reason for Sehmat to go check her husband’s wallet ( scene was ridiculously plastic).
LikeLike
sanjana
July 25, 2018
Atlast watched the film on amazon prime. The film did not take sides or preachy. Just business. Ridiculous scenes like Alia hoisting those wires so openly. And there are no cctv cameras in such an important house. Conveniently a mother in law is absent who could have sensed a rat in her bahu. Iqbal is too lame and unbelievable. I can understand Sehmat finding spying more exciting than her husband! Alia looked stoned and stunned. Her mother is lifeless. Wished they showed Ahlawat’s interactions with his own family in a scene or two. In comparison Bajrangi Bhaijaan showed much more without upsetiing anyone.
And why everyone is so polite? They should have named the film Polite.
LikeLike
Amit Kumar
September 4, 2018
What I especially loved about the movie was the balanced approach of the director, Meghna Gulzar without taking any side. Although there were a few unconvincing moments in the movie, but still the movie struck the right chords. Alia Bhatt has been growing in stature with each passing year, as far as acting is concerned. What a tremendous performance she has given in Raazi! Very natural. And superb direction too by the dynamic Meghna Gulzar. For the music, “Ae watan” is my favourite
LikeLike