Blurring the line between right and wrong Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Radhika Apte, Satyadeep Mishra, Yogita Bihani, Rohit Sa...
Blurring the line between right and wrong
Starring: Saif Ali Khan,
Hrithik Roshan, Radhika Apte, Satyadeep Mishra, Yogita Bihani, Rohit Saraf
Rating: 3.75/5
Vikram Vedha is a film
that doesn’t waste any time getting to the point and cuts all the comedy that
people have come to expect out of Bollywood action films and instead uses that
time to make the audience cheer at the stunning visuals and action set-pieces.
The film follows an
honest cop Vikram as he tries to track down Vedha, a gangster who has committed
16 murders to date and is based out of Lucknow. To nab him, the Uttar Pradesh
police have created an STF (a Special Task Force) headed by the witty and suave
Vikram. Getting a tip that Vedha is hiding in an abandoned structure, Vikram
along with his best friend Abbas (an extremely dependable Satyadeep Mishra) and
other members of the STF go to the place and kills all of them but not Vedha. One
day on getting a tip about Vedha’s whereabouts and preparing to leave to kill him,
in walks Vedha coolly (a seeti-maar entry by Hrithik Roshan) into the police
station and surrenders! With Vikram sitting opposite him, Vedha narrates his
story which goes back 13 years ago while he was working for a Kanpur-based
criminal Parshuram, and also the story about his younger brother Shatak (Rohit
Saraf leaving a mark) and his childhood friend Chanda (Yogita Bihani) and why
Vedha committed his first murder. Vedha puts Vikram in a dilemma. As Vikram is
preparing to hear more stories from Vedha, in walks his lawyer Priya (a
wonderful Radhika Apte) Vikram’s wife, and secures Vedha’s bail. What follows
is a cat-and-mouse game between Vikram and Vedha.
Pushkar and Gayathri
direct the Hindi remake of their acclaimed 2017 Tamil film and succeed in
grabbing a hold of a wider audience. Under all the massy action and stylistic
character entrances, Vikram Vedha is a deeply sociological film that questions
human morality and how we come to the solution of what is right and wrong in a
manner Indian cinema has never seen before. The duo directs this magnificently
with little to no flaws technically with a tightly structured screenplay and
some of the best cinematography an Indian blockbuster has seen.
2022 has been a good year
for Indian blockbuster action films getting the recognition they deserve and
this is a solid entry into that category. The director duo, like many other
South-Indian filmmakers, know how to make a massy film that has something for
everyone, and that skill of theirs is more evident here than it has been in any
other Hindi remake of a South-Indian language film directed by the same
filmmaker ever.
This film was already
destined to be a commercial success even if it was a bad film due to the two
A-listers signed on as the leading men – Saif Ali Khan and Hrithik Roshan. Saif
Ali Khan plays his role as Vikram with subtlety and crisp one-liners too and
excellently as expected out of him and Hrithik Roshan plays his role of Vedha
with as much charisma and style needed for a character of that stature. Despite
two excellent performances from the two leads, Saif Ali Khan ends up stealing
the show. Both complement and don’t outdo each other. The choreography for the
action set-pieces is excellent and at times, breathtaking, like many other
South-Indian films. There are some unnecessary scenes that
could’ve been cut (the biggest example being the song Alcoholia) but despite
those scenes, the film doesn’t lose the momentum it had built from the start.
A
fast-paced film, VV deserves to be seen in a packed theatre.
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