Review : Viruddh

Vidyadhar Patwardhan (Bachhan) is a retired employee of Air-India, and lives with his wife Sumitra (Tagore) in their home in Bombay. Their son Amar (Abraham) is studying in London, and hasn’t been home for 2 years. He plans to come home for his birthday, and the parents are delighted, and look forward to seeing him. Amar does come home, bringing with him his live-in Britsh-Indian girlfriend Jenny (Dandekar). After the initial rebuke by Sumi, both Amar and Jenny are welcomed warmly. There is more cause for happiness and celebration when Sumi and Vidyadhar get Amar and Jenny married.

Planning secretly for Amar’s upcoming birthday, Sumi, Vidyadhar, and Jenny conspire to get Amar out of the house, by sending him to a friend’s party alone. At the friend’s party, Amar witnesses a shooting incident, and is also shot when he tries to prevent the assailant from escaping. Amar dies in the hospital. Sumi, Vidyadhar and Jenny are incoherent with grief. But there is more to come. It appears that the assailant was the son of the Chief Minister, and to protect him, the police fabricate a story about Amar and Jenny being drug-pushers, and plant evidence in their home. They arrest Jenny, and malign Amar in court, through bribed witnesses and false alibis for the CM’s son. Sumi and Vidyadhar lose their case in court, but refuse to accept defeat …..

Viruddh is the story of their fight for justice.

All actors have done a good job. Amitabh and Sharmila, seen together on-screen after many decades, mouth their dialogues with natural ease. And even Abraham, whom I consider wooden, has managed to render his character adequately. MTV VJ Dandekar, a newcomer in films, does well also. Sachin Khedekar, as the police officer forced to toe the chief minister’s line, is good, but his character has not been well-developed in the script. Sunjay Dutt, as mechanic Ali, delivers his performance with aplomb. In spite of such good acting performances, the film lacks the pathos which such a script would naturally generate. Yes, there are some touching and poignant moments, but they are few and far between.

Surprisingly there are no songs in this film, and the background score is mediocre enough to go un-noticed. The first half of the film is pretty much used to “set-up” the characters, through detailed scenes showing the love and understanding between Vidyadhar and Sumi, as well as the camraderie and respect they share with their neighbors and friends. The director manages to create a natural atmosphere in the Patwardhan home, with Amitabh providing much of the well-timed humor. Not to say that there aren’t kinks in the script – there are. Besides that, the director adds to the film cheesy advertisement like scenes, extolling the virtues of Elf Engine oil as used by mechanic Ali, Nerolac paints as used by the Patwardhan’s to paint their home, and Western Union as used by Amar to deliver funds to aged parents, seriously detracting from the flavor of the film.

The first half pretty much deals with Sumi and Vidyadhar, kids and the good life, while the rest of the considerable story is squeezed into the post-interval second half. And this leads to under-development of the drama, and inadequate attention to plot twists which warranted more leisurely treatment. I’d consider this the major problem in the movie, and one of the chief reasons why the film loses impact. Also, in the second half, the director resorts to over-done and slightly unrealistic emotional moments to shore up his degenerating script, but it doesn’t help.

Needless to say, this movie falls way short of my expectations, which were of a “Saaransh” like film. OK, OK, I agree that that is aiming a bit too high, but I did have justification, with Manjrekar’s past record and all that. So, to be fair, sans comparison, this is a reasonably decent film, an attempt to do something novel and “hatke”, and does warrant a “dekho”.