A spy film essentially has to be an intelligently made project with an enjoyable pace as well as the excitement, keeping you engrossed in its various twists and turns coming unexpectedly. No doubt there is a solid reasoning why our spy films always focus Pakistan instead of any other country, since that takes care of both the vengeance and the nationalism factor together as an added advantage. But a spy movie (or any such film with a clash), actually misses a lot, when the opponents are portrayed as mere fools or quite weak in comparison taking away the fire from the conflict.
The recent spy film RAAZI also did the same, having similar training sequences along with the unrequired explanations and strange, foolish rivals, but it at least kept the viewers thoroughly engrossed in its quick events happening one after another with less predictability.
However here in RAW we get to see exactly the opposite with all the features that ideally should not be the part of a thrilling spy film. In few words, though the makers might have got the intention right but the execution never supports the same and we get to see an extremely slow pace, spoon feeding, predictable progression, unwanted songs and a routine weak portrayal of the opponent in the film, which even forces you to think that probably something went wrong during its making.
Putting it differently, maybe the team started with a good vision but then had to put in the usual training sessions, a love interest, a mother, a qawwali, a love song, an emotional MAA song and more such cliche elements into the narration killing the actual concept of a spy film. And probably later when they found that it has become a mess, they smartly inserted the ‘now-in-trend’ nationalism element in its finale trying some damage control.
Set in 1971, the film has an interesting base structure related with Pakistan and Bangladesh, which sadly doesn't get any support from the writing or direction resulting in a below average project. Scoring decently in its technical and art department, the too obvious loopholes and a feeble execution never lets you relate with the characters on screen and thus you don’t find any excitement watching (unusual) names such as Jackie Shroff, Suchitra Krishnamurthy, Raghubir Yadav, Shaddab Amjad Khan and more giving just satisfactory performances. Besides Mouni Roy in a short role certainly looks different (and less beautiful) may be after some kind of facial surgery. On the other hand Sikander Kher successfully manages to impress the most as the Pakistani Police officer.
Playing the lead, John Abraham gives it all and his very few facial expressions actually become a merit for the role of a hard-to-break spy, who gives nothing through his face to the interrogation officers. Now it depends upon the viewers/readers whether this should be considered as a compliment or a drawback.
In all, RAW is a too casually made and a painfully long spy film that has its title as the most interesting feature to be honest. It’s also a supposedly researched thriller, wherein a Mazhabi (Devotional) Qawwali is being sung in an on-going party, a Maa song is inserted right in the middle of all the tension and in which the most competent police officer asks “How many fingers are there in your right hand…… and (then) left hand?” while interrogating a suspect through a lie-detector test.
So the conclusion is all yours as well as the choice to watch it or not in the costly multiplexes.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
