MADAARI (U/A)

Director: Nishikant Kamat

Cast: Irrfan Khan, Jimmy Shergill, Vishesh Bansal, Tushar Dalvi

Running time: 137 minutes

Nishikant Kamat’s Madaari is like a quasi sequel to Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday!, 2008’s sleeper hit where a common man had forced the system to answer difficult questions about dealing with terrorists and terror attacks. Here, the questions are about corruption and the wound is a little more personal, with the ticking bomb being the kidnapped son of the home minister.

Irrfan plays the common man who abducts the kid from his boarding school in Dehradun, setting off panic and frenzy in the top ranks of the ruling government sitting in Delhi. Even as they struggle to find a trace, the kidnapper calls and asks the think tank to track down his own kid, a victim of a recent corruption-based tragedy.

Thereon, the film is parallely cut between the man-boy duo moving around the interiors of north India in trains and buses and the police team led by Nachiket (Jimmy Shergill in another Wednesday deja vu) trying to track them down. 

Kamat, who last helmed Rocky Handsome, has this uncontrollable knack of sentimentalising many a moment in his movies. While that does give emotional punch to the proceedings, for a film like Madaari it also snatches its sharpness. With sad songs and a maudlin background score, the narrative stops thrilling very early into the film and becomes a needy sympathy-sopper.

Often in the latter part of the first half and in the early portions of the second half, you feel like giving it one mighty push.
The film does have a strong finish, but by then Madaari has overstayed its welcome, at least by 20 minutes, often going round in circles over the same issue. 

The only factor transcending all negatives is the performance of Irrfan, leading from the front in another terrific one-man show. Perhaps it’s come to a point where a good Irrfan performance is as constant as the rising and setting of the sun.

The most difficult part of the character is the inner fight of a good man trying to break bad to seek answers and Irrfan brings out that inner turmoil to perfection. Otherwise quiet and sedate, he often breaks into these blazing bursts of manic energy that shake up the monotony of the film, almost rebooting it time to time. Also, his scenes with the kid (Vishesh Bansal) are fun and very natural.

Unlike A Wednesday!, Madaari doesn’t have the power to make you angry largely because you have long been aware of the all-encompassing corruption around you and even got used to it. While the film doesn’t work as a thriller, its best bet is as an emotional drama riding on Irrfan’s superlative performance. Watch it for that madaari of an actor!

Will you watch a film only for Irrfan? Tell t2@abp.in