Recollect the plot of ‘A Wednesday’. Imagine Irfan in Naseeruddin’s shoes and Jimmy Shergil in Anupam Kher’s shoes, you have a Madaari ready. Of course, it is not as simple as that but in a bird’s eye view, that’s what Madaari looks like. Madaari is very desperate to make a point, or rather many points with A Wednesday-like movie but fails.
Nirmal (Irrfaan Khan) loses his 8 –year old son in a bridge collapse in Mumbai. The incident hurts him immensely and is in no mood to forgive the roots of the cause and teach a lesson. He plans to kidnap the son of a powerful politician and creates chaos. Jimmy Shergil plays Nachiket, who is assigned to track down Nirmal. Madaari is supposed to be a social thriller but doesn’t live up to the expectations for its genre. Coming to the social part, the writer tries to bring in to focus many issues eventually making it look like an essay of 100 words describing the problems in India currently. Sticking to few might have helped, may be. Moreover the dialogues that are used to convey these problems appeared to carry a punch just for the heck of it. Had it not been Irrfan , then the punches would have backfired big time. Mr.Khan managed it somehow with his unmistakable acting skills.
The logic sometimes seemed to take a toll, but again keeping in mind the point Nirmal wants to make, it seemed acceptable in parts. The movie definitely belongs to India today, for the issues it tried to mention and explaining some of the psychological aspects of the junta and the media.
Jimmy Shergil’s talent was wasted as he was put in a stereotypical role and most of the scenes, the shots over-emphasized his search operation. The kid who played the boy was given a character that was hardly enticing. The conversations between Irfan and the child actor seemed to have been written just to convey something in a sarcastic way but it was not effective.
Direction by Nishikant Kamath was extremely ordinary and he has stretched at the movie way too long which could have probably completed in a much shorter duration. The film tries to elevate the power of a common man and tries to be inspiring. The screenplay for that however looked forced and plastic.
The lethargic pace is the biggest flaw of the film. Moreover the hazy climax leaves the viewer with a disappointing note. On the whole, the movie turns out to be a product of over-ambitiousness and fantasy instead of being an effective and gripping social thriller.
