Intentionally keeping the title as MUKKABAAZ instead of BOXER for a film revolving around a local solid player, Anurag Kashyap raises many relevant questions about our weird sports authorities, their shameful neglecting attitude towards other sports (apart from the most famous one) and the powerful political system forcefully interfering in the selection of players ruining many potential careers.
Intelligently incorporating sequences depicting many current appalling instances, Kashyap showcases almost everything in his film ranging from religion-caste-region bias, suppressed women, exploiting government officers and local political dons to lynching, life threatening attacks by cow-saving-mob, shouts of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and more with a sharp sarcasm.
Focusing on the passionate love affair of its protagonist with a beautiful, mute girl, MUKKABAAZ is a complete winner in its first half till the focus remains on the game, the affair, the local ambience, the enjoyable interactions and the political mafia entirely influencing the system and authorities as per their personal bias. The excellence continues for a while post the intermission too. But then suddenly it all becomes quite filmy taking a completely different route like a typical Hindi film ending on a happy note, wherein the hero goes with heavy guns and ammunition to the villain’s den and rescues the abducted heroine (or nurses) with a lot of entertaining action satisfying the die-hard fans. However the only difference here is that the guns get replaced by strong convincing punches and the narration thoroughly remains realistically rustic and raw maintaining its enjoyable settings.
The film is certainly thrilling in its well-conceived fight sequences, especially in the ring with a fabulous camerawork truly enhancing the bouts through its compelling hand-held movements and angles. It remains highly enjoyable in its portrayal of love in the first half and there are many worth noticing, appreciable sequences like the one where mother-daughter talk about marriage expressing in sign language, the lively interaction of Sharvan with her younger sister, the introduction sequence of Ravi Kishan - the new coach and the explosive scene in the office dealing with the officer-in-charge. The crowd-pleasing dialogues entertain you constantly with a strong regional touch and Kashyap surprisingly presents it all in a light comical tone that never appears to be anything dark or unpleasant, the director is otherwise known for.
The background score and soundtrack gels perfectly with the narration and it’s the entertaining lyrics that lead the songs conveying the exact sentiment of the moment in the local lingo. At the same time the tracks tend to get repetitive too coming one after another adding to the lengthy duration that could have been easily avoided.
Much more than its subject, MUKKABAAZ actually deserves to be seen for its performances including both the lead and supporting ones that always has been a key feature of Anurag Kashyap films. Vineet Kumar Singh makes his character Shravan look all real both in the boxing as well as in the love and office sequences. He is simply terrific and highly authentic in his physicality and performance delivering a solid punch. Zoya Hussain, on the other hand comes up with another knock out performance of the film (in her debut), without saying a single word looking truly adorable in the first half with all her natural expressions. Ravi Kishan makes the much awaited entry in a Kashyap film with a bang and he truly kills it. But I really wished to see much more of him as the Dalit coach to be honest. Jimmy Shergill as usual excels with her blood-red eyes spelling the terror and it’s a sheer delight to see Sadhna Singh (after a while) playing the loving mother.
In all, Kashyap successfully makes a comeback in MUKKABAAZ as a writer-director raising his voice against many questionable norms of our social and political structure, (mentioning all known names in the dialogues, including a funny cameo of Nawazuddin too with AK’s favourite brass band). But he also loses his focus in the second half and the climax in particular, trying to maintain an extremely difficult balance between the realistic and mainstream cinema making a visible compromise with his own craft. Still the film surely deserves to be seen for its worthy merits and execution led by all powerful performances and is certainly going to be loved by the director's (torrent) fan following.
Rating : 3 + 0.5 / 5 (Including an additional 0.5 for both Vineet Kumar Singh and Zoya Hussain)
(Note: The article was first published on UC-News Mobile App in January 2018)
