Harish Nair

A honest description of the Indian democracy with its never ending loop of corruption and exploitation. Here no one is saint and everyone harbours a secret desire to usurp power and make money. Those who try to bring in chain are either killed or pushed into the sidelines. When you finally bring change, the change is just the faces. The system remains the same. Best thing about Dibakar Banerjee is that he doesn't drag the movie unnecessarily. Scene by scene the movie is linear and coherent. Performances are amazing given the talented star cast the movie has, but the other actors have also nailed their role to perfection. Abhay Deol proves again that he is not your conventional hero but the hero bollywood needs. His portrayal of a bureaucrat bound by the laws of protocols being part of the system that renders him helpless. Abhay as the Tam-Bram IAS officer heading the commission to investigate murder of a professor turned activist is torn between his own personal ambitions to leave the country and relocate to Stockholm as a director in a multinational corporation or to do justice with is work as the head of the commission. It is Abhay's choice to either reject Stockholm laddu as a reward for his silence or to bring the perpetrators to book at the end is the movie's climax. Emran Hashmi as always nails his dark character who goads young women into pornography and later experiences a change of heart when unexpected events happen in his life and he is left with the choice to either run or fight. And he decides to fight and help Kalki in getting justice for her beloved professor. Ultimately, after Abhay and his cunning strategy dislodges the state government it is the professor's jealous wife who rides on a sympathy wave to become the next chief minister and finally manifest the same project that her husband vehemently opposed and finally died. Dibakar Banerjee gives a deeper message to the world we see as progressive fronts and the ever-opposing 'leftists'. There is a gray part where these distinctions don't exist and the fine lines are very hard to witness and you are on your own intellect to discriminate the good from bad.