Sumita Bhattacharya

Watched 'Raazi' and here's my two cents worth. I found the movie, overall, too simplistic. Having watched hundreds of spy thrillers, like 'The Departed', 'Inglorious Basterds', or 'Bridge of Spies', etc to name a very few, my main observations are, a) There should have been a building up of Alia's character and a more plausible narrative for her induction into spying. Apart from the fact that she was capable of memorising a phone number, which we see during the five minute college scene, there was no foreshadowing of the fact that she would have to emerge as a ruthless and devious person who in the end destroys her entire family. b) The movie should have had three chapters - one, building up to be a spy, two, the work as a spy, three, some kind of introspection on the whole action. All we were shown was a shot of her against a window at the very end of the movie. Throughout the movie we as an audience are being told so much so explicitly about patriotism but this part was left implicit. That's a lazy ending. It was too abrupt and made no sense. It wasn't enough. c) Alia's training and her relationship with her handler could have been so much more complex, which usually is shown in most spy movies. Some humour, some mentorship. The fellow had a poker face the whole time. d) I have no complaints about the acting. Alia's performance is par excellence. But every time that she was successful in getting such massive volumes of information in an unbelievably short time and in such a simplistic manner, like a misplaced file, leaves me to ponder whether spies really evade suspicion so easily. I can go on and on, because I went with such high expectations and they weren't met. But I will still say that I wasn't bored for a minute.

One of the best movies of recent times. Completely rivetting from the word 'go'. The fantastic cast does an amazing job. The script, screen play and the acting is superb.