Rarely do films, particularly Bollywood films, tell an unpredictable story so simply - without any visual embellishments, fluff or melodrama – as Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur does. The story of a distraught husband Raghu’s (Varun Dhawan) vengeance against his wife and son’s murderer (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and his struggle with his own moral decay over a span of 15 years,
Badlapur ***
Starring: Varun Dhawan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi, Vinay Pathak, Divya Dutta and Yami Gautam
Directed by: Sriram Raghavan
Rarely do films, particularly Bollywood films, tell an unpredictable story so simply - without any visual embellishments, fluff or melodrama – as Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur does. 
The story of a distraught husband Raghu’s (Varun Dhawan) vengeance against his wife and son’s murderer (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and his struggle with his own moral decay over a span of 15 years, Badlapur is anything but your conventional Bollywood crime-thriller. Instead, it is gritty, grim and bloodcurdling for the paranoia it induces with its dark depiction of the ‘grey’ that exists in humans. Yet at the same time it is riveting and conscientiously intriguing, playing games with one’s mind and posing unsettling questions such as to what extent is revenge justified and perhaps what defines evil on moral grounds – the fugitive bank robber’s murderous act or Raghu’s long-standing vendetta that unfolds in the most gruesome of forms.
The film starts off with the tagline ‘Don’t miss the beginning’ and quite aptly so for it is only within the first five minutes of the film where it transforms from a seemingly insignificant revenge drama into a lot less subtle and complex thriller. That one-take shot where you witness Pune’s MG Road in its daily routine – a woman cribbing with a vegetable-seller, a towing van picking up bikes and two completely random men with masks heading inside a local bank pulling the shutters down without garnering any passerby’s attention – suddenly transforms into a riot of mishaps as the two men forcefully hijack the said woman’s SUV to escape, finally triggering an alarm inside a nearby traffic official’s head. It keeps you hooked on to the screens as you eagerly watch the story unravel.
Varun Dhawan is brilliant as the gutted husband who is battling with his personal rage against the killer as well as the loss of his loved ones. And so is Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Liak, one of the bank robbers, who blames the murder on his accomplice thanks to his apparently insignificant personality but still ends up in jail for a good 20 years. 
The two actors, positioned distinctively apart from each other but still working in tandem, are what make the movie a gripping tale worth watching. There is no black and white between the two of them. There is no good guy-bad guy construe either; perhaps not even a distinction of the protagonist and antagonist. Each of them has a story to tell, a story to back their mental framework in the film and serve as the buildup to the unforeseen end. Nawaz’s humour in unlikely dark situations forces you to smile repentantly and Varun’s misogynist behaviour makes you wonder if the outburst of his anger is even justified. The supporting cast – especially the unknown ones - also satisfies with an impressionable performance; Kumud Mishra as the Inspector behind the case and Radhika Apte as the accomplice’s panicked wife Kanchan.
The film however is not without flaws. The pace is slow, inconsistent and dragged mostly in the second half. The massive jump over fifteen years to the future leaves one a bit detached from the characters as one is devoid of experiencing their journey.
The climax, though impeccable, comes a good five minutes before the film ends and those extra five minutes leave one perplexed despite Huma Qureshi’s (who plays Nawaz’s love interest Jhimlee) phenomenal concluding dialogue. That said, even without edge-of-the-seat twists and turns and a well-connected plot, Badlapur surpasses your average Bollywood thriller and comes up with a different take on revenge altogether – perhaps it’s the situation which is ‘criminal’ and not the person himself.
It’s a great story adapted from one of Italian author Massimo Carlotto’s books; compelling performances by the twosome make this revenge, served cold and dirty, scrumptious!
