Raid Movie Review

RAID, is probably the title which tells in the most concise way what’s the film is all about, and what to expect from it too. Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta who gave Aamir, No One Killed Jessica and Ghanchakkar. Following the chronology, his quality gradually came down and RAID falls in that pattern too. Probably, it should have had a tagline – the obvious.

Set in Lucknow, the movie is about a detailed RAID led by Amay Patnaik (Ajay Devgn), an Income tax officer who is a “sincere”, “impeccable”, “unfathomable” man with “integrity”. This is Amay’s nth transfer in his career. He gets to know that a certain Tauji has illegal assets, and Amay plans for an Income Tax Raid. Tauji lives in a mansion, a stout businessman with lots of political influence, a joint family and a set of henchmen. There’s Amay’s grit and determination on one side and Tauji’s power play on the other. The whole movie is a clash of words and actions between these two.

The movie is apparently inspired by a true incident in 1981. In those times, the places for hidden assets were bed mattresses, walls and ceilings etc., which we saw umpteen number of timesin the movies that came in 80s and 90s. So, the supposed thrills when these spots are unveiled, don’t give much thrill. In such cases of obviousness, screenplay can be used to make it thrilling, but that doesn’t happen here. The movie definitely gets into a racy mode when the raid begins, but the proceedings get obvious and more obvious as time passes. On top of all these, songs come in between the sparingly interesting scenes.

Ajay Devgn’s character is such a done and dusted role done by himself so many times earlier in all variants from most subtle to most loud, where he stands as a sincere strong-willed office in midst of a corrupt environment filled with crime. There was nothing new he could offer. As expected, he is given a handful of strong punch dialogues to counter Tauji which was played impeccably well by Saurabh Shukla. Mr. Shukla is the best part of the film. However, he gets some dialogues which hampers the strong antagonist character he established till then. Ileana D cruz gets a typical role of wife carrying the carriage. There is an interesting character of Tauji’s mom, played by a 85 year old lady called pushpa joshi who makes her debut with this film.

RAID is good in some parts, but the predictability kills the film. A good screenplay would have helped the film. There is no Raj Kumar Gupta mark in the film, unlike his earlier films where some scenes are thought of so uniquely. The editor also did a mediocre job, and Amit Trivedi’s tracks don’t help the film.

RAID, is a film which is not only sets in 80s but behaves like one. Raj Kumar Gupta’s poorest job indeed.