Irada movie review: Irada good, but execution poor

Cast: Arshad Warsi, Naseeruddin Shah, Divya Dutta
Director: Aparnaa Singh

There are films that are well-intentioned and would make riveting stories too, but mainstream Bollywood rarely comes up with relevant themes that would arouse our interest to the extent that we would sit up, put aside our jobs and enjoy the ride. Debutant director Aparnaa Singh’s Irada is one such release that has all the factual details in place, and even has some great performers sinking their teeth into pivotal roles. But does that constitute a great work of art too? Or, even a watchable entertaining film?

Wish we had a winner on our hands, more so, since there are no big releases this week. Instead, what Singh has put out for us are accurately correct events from not too distant past that have almost been blurred by the media, or forgotten, and little else.

Punjab has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. But the state, as we all know it, as the bedrock of the Punjabi community’s rich traditions and culture, is merely the half-truth. Underneath the façade of the best practices that define the land of five rivers, lie the underbelly that the authorities may continue to live in denial about — be it the menace of drugs or the contaminated water that resulted in making Punjab dishonourable. Thus, when a mysterious bomb blast in a  tycoon’s factory shakes the city of Bhatinda, it prompts the state chief minister Ramandeep Braitch (Divya Dutta) to hire an NIA officer Arjun Mishra (Arshad Warsi) to solve the mystery. In the same breath, she makes it clear to him that he need not put his heart and soul into the investigation, and that he should do as much as he gets “instructed” to. He, of course, is a conscientious law-abiding officer who would take no nonsense from anyone. His young son, with whom he keeps having regular telephonic conversations, thinks the world of him, and expects his dad to do a “singham” at work, without much success since the disciplined father would have none of his son’s grand expectations realised. He meets an ex-Army man Parabjeet Walia (Naseeruddin Shah) who is seeking revenge for his dead daughter and a journalist (Sagarika Ghatge) demanding justice for her slain RTI activist boyfriend (Nikhil Pandey). There is also industrialist and philanthropist Paddy Sharma (Sharad Kelkar) whose obvious interest lies in making huge amounts of money by unfair means, grease the palms of all the powers that be, and make a clean exit. His “close” contacts in the government help him get away with murder, and he instructs the CM to close the investigation of his factory blast at the earliest, so that he may claim the insurance.

What gets unearthed during the investigation and the journalist’s startling revelations leaves us shocked. In reality, there is nothing out on the surface, and truth is not what it seems. Groundwater pollution, reverse boring and other environmental toxic and hazardous contamination raise contemporary ecological issues that have caused disasters in the state. In fact, Ludhiana amounts for the maximum number of cancer patients in the country, and busts the myth about prosperity in Punjab.

With its heart in the right place, Irada would have been a very important film ever made in recent years. Which Hindi film has ever talked about the perils of chemical contamination, that too in its main theme? None, for sure.

But amateur handling of such an important subject lets even actors of the calibre of Shah and Dutta, start overplaying, particularly, Dutta. The script too lets us down. The unflagging inspiration beyond a point looks simplistic. In trying to project the harsh realities of Punjab, writers fail miserably to get to the point. The investigation itself looks hollow, and at times, not in sync with the largely authentic subject of the film. It’s not just the lousy handling it’s unnecessary performance-oriented sheen that falls flat. There was obviously a story here, but Irada doesn’t make it compelling, as it lacks focus and energy, not to mention a character like Paddy, the chief villain, which is facile and thin.

Irada, thus, in a certain light, attempts to experimentally answer the question, what does it mean to be a whistleblower? And how does one depict such a huge threat to mankind that results in greed and manmade tragedies befalling human beings?

Warsi seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly as we find one of the greater threads coursing through the tale that changes the expectation of the audience. It’s Kelkar’s typical Bambaiyya tone — more in the way his role has been written — that strikes a false note. There’s little else to drive a bit of box office, not much heft, or mellow treatment and control.

The writer is a film critic and has been reviewing films for over 15 years. He also writes on music, art and culture, and other human interest stories.