Mulk movie review, left, right disco

[Beardman]

MULK MOVIE REVIEW

• TIMES OF INDIA

Lasyapriya Sundaram, TNN, Updated: Aug 2, 2018, 01.37 PM ISTCritic's Rating: 3.5/5

Mulk Story: The youngest son of a Muslim family settled in Benaras gets involved in terrorist activities, leading to a bomb blast massacre. His actions have an adverse effect on the family who are left to defend themselves as people who are innocent and not anti-nationals

Mulk Review: Director Anubhav Sinha sets out to lay bare the prejudice that often precedes people’s perception of the Muslim community in our country. The patriarch of the family, Murad Ali Mohammed (Rishi Kapoor) is a well-respected lawyer who has Hindu friends in the mohallas of Benaras. His daughter-in-law, Aarti Mohammed, (Taapsee Pannu), is also a Hindu.

Following a bomb blast, which kills several people Murad Ali’s younger brother’s son, Shahid Mohammed (Prateik Babbar) becomes a suspected terrorist but refuses to surrender to the police. The horrific incident changes the lives of everyone in the family and Shahid’s father, Bilaal Mohammed (Manoj Pahwa) is taken into police custody under suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities. The family’s friends from other faiths also turn foes, and Murad Ali has no other option but to defend his brother and prove that they are as loyal and as patriotic as anybody else in the country.

Mulk throws light on how people fall prey to political agendas that intend to divide the country on the basis of ‘us’ vs ‘them’. Through the dialogue-heavy narrative, the film reiterates for the umpteenth time, that terrorism has no religion. However, the tonality of the film is far from subtle and the perspectives are presented vehemently in a manner that’s jarring and overbearing. The first half is slow-paced but what really works for the film is the dramatic courtroom scenes, which will make you think about the Islamophobia that exists around us. Sometimes without us being cognizant of it.

Rishi Kapoor as the patriarch performs his role with restraint and nuance. The seasoned actor brings gravitas to his portrayal of a Muslim man who refuses to succumb to the polarities manifested by both Hindus and Muslims. And yet, is aware that he has to prove his love for his country beyond doubt. Prateik Babbar as a young Muslim boy who voluntarily chooses to involve himself in a terrorist act despite being raised in a family, which has no allegiance to anti-national sentiments is miscast. Taapsee Pannu as the daughter-in-law shines in the courtroom scenes but at times, she falters at delivering lengthy monologues. In the supporting cast, Manoj Pahwa, Neena Gupta and Ashutosh Rana are competent.

Shot in the bylanes of small town India, the film captures the milieu it is set in aptly. The music is the weakest link and the soaring and melodramatic background score in some portions is distracting. Mulk focusses on some hard-hitting and burning issues, while also highlighting the crucial role that the media and various other channels of information play in disseminating the right news and facts to its citizens. It also brings to fore the other faces of terrorism which often gets brushed under the carpet.

In-depth Analysis

Our overall critic’s rating is not an average of the sub scores below.

Direction:

3.5/5

Dialogues:

3/5

Screenplay:

3.5/5

Music:

2.5/5

Visual appeal:

3/5

[Beardman]

It is just the worst of times. Secular liberals are flailing, but failing. The world has shifted, but their language, style, worldview remains the same. The narrative is being controlled by another, and they seem to be only reacting.

Their pronouncements of aghast rectitude bounce around in their own echo chambers, amounting to a few cheers but leading, eventually, only to a heightened sense of exhausted despair.

It’s in this viciously coiled, tense state of being, one that is fraught with grievous, ruinous dangers for the country, that Mulk, written and directed by Anubhav Sinha, arrives clutching the Constitution, ready to hear every bigoted comment, give the Hindutva chauvinist his time and play.

Do your worst, it seems to say, and then it allows the main accused — the Muslim community — to take the stand. They are asked to prove not just their innocence in the crime that’s on trial, but to convince how, while wearing the bread and the skull cap, they could love this country.

Sinha’s Mulk (nation) is set in Benaras. The city which was, according to mythology, established by Shiva on the banks of the Ganges, is not just the oldest living city in the world but is, in many ways, the sanctum sanctorum of many religions. Hinduism, yes. But also Buddhism because this is where Buddha gave his first sermon.

It’s also a city where 29 per cent of the population is Muslim, and where Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb announces itself at dawn everyday with fajr ki namaz and Ram ka naam.

It is also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency where he loves taking foreign visitors to witness the swirling dance of multi-tiered diyas as brass bells chime to holy incantation.

Mulk arrives at a time when, just 16 km from the ghats, the historic, 150-year-old Mughalsarai station is being painted saffron and its name is being changed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

Destruction and healing are not new to Varanasi, the city of death and birth. But they leave indelible scars.

Mulk, set in a locality where Muslims and Hindus live side-by-side, is about how delicately our cities, our country is teetering on the cusp of a chilling change.

Vakeel Saab, or Murad Ali Mohammed (Rishi Kapoor), is the patriarch of a large family that lives at one end of a busy lane where Lallan Pandey, Chaubeyji and others live and run small businesses.

They chatter about cricket, politics, and sip tea together.

In Murad’s house, with its large courtyard that serves as a bustling living-room, live his wife Tabassum (Neena Gupta), brother Bilal (Manoj Pahwa) with his wife (Prachee Shah), son Shahid (Prateik Babbar) and daughter Ayat.

Murad Ali and Tabassum’s bahu Arti (Taapsee Pannu) arrives from London to attend her father-in-law’s birthday celebrations.

We hear murmurs of trouble in her marriage because her husband, their son, wants the religion of their unborn children be decided beforehand, by him. But there’s no time to discuss this. Neighbours have been invited. Thirty kilos of gosht has to be cooked.

Everyone comes. Many dance, some taste the delicious gosht, and some say, “Hum in logon ke yahan nahin khaate”.

The film hears such utterances of almost casual prejudice, but doesn’t react.

Probably because, like most of us, it thinks it too crass to engage with. Or, because matters of faith are best left alone.

Or, perhaps, because no one is fanning tensions.

But then a bomb goes off. People die and a CCTV grab takes the anti-terror squad’s SSP Danish Javed (Rajat Kapoor) and his men with automatic weapons to a hideout for an encounter and then to Vakeel Saab’s house.

Even though the investigation, interrogation is underway, the lane outside seems to have already passed judgment and gets busy meting out punishment.

Personal prejudice gives way to collective, antagonistic assertion of Hindutva. And suddenly, some individuals begin speaking as if they are representatives of the state.

“Humare desh mein reh kar humein hi maar rahe hain.”

The case moves to the court where questions are asked about Bilal’s links with a terrorist, about the SIM cards missing from his electronics shop.

For the police and lawyers, the many calls Bilal made to Pakistan, and the $1,500 he received seem to be proof of guilt. No one is interested in knowing why.

At first, Murad Ali argues the case. But when the prosecution’s vakeel, Santosh Anand (Ashutosh Rana), turns the case about an individual act of terror into one about a community’s deep conspiracy to destroy a nation, Arti steps up.

There is talk of “inke samaaj mein” — about many wives, many children who only study the Quran and how one is sent to train in jihad.  

“Mughal chale gaye,
jihad chhod gaye.”

In the court of Judge Harish Madhok (Kumud Mishra) the film allows all that was once detestable, unutterable to be shouted out. And Santosh does it with the confidence and flourish of a pulpiteer who is seeing a full house for the first time.

There are moments in this game of oneupmanship in court when the judge seems to be swaying where the wind blows.

But then the definition of terrorism, aatank is repeated. The defence calls into question police’s decision to shoot and not arrest, and then asks, how does someone prove their love for a nation? By voting? By paying taxes? By refusing to accept the body of a terrorist son?

Sinha’s Mulk is decidedly high-pitched and lowbrow. There is no subtlety in its characters, plot, dialogue, politics.

Arti, the Hindu bahu of a Muslim family, has to prove the innocence of her father-in-law, and Muslims in general.

Dialogue that will make other movies barf are hurled with abandon.

“Kya nahin milta aap logon
ko yahan par?”

Its high-octane courtroom rhetoric is as disturbing as it is gripping. And that is where the gutsy brilliance of Sinha’s film lies.

It doesn’t flinch when characters are being brazenly bigoted because it has faith in itself, in its worldview. It knows that its elegant argument at the end doesn’t just have moral and legal underpinnings, but also humanity belonging to a civilisation that has survived and outlasted marauders.

The film’s screenplay is political and its dialogue piercing, dramatic. They are entrusted to an excellent cast.

Rishi Kapoor just keeps going from strength to strength, and sweet Taapsee seems to grow in stature in the course of the film as she goes from a quiet bahu to an angry, clever lawyer. That’s a feat given that she is up against the scarily stinging Ashutosh Rana.

Manoj Pahwa and Neena Gupta ground the film in the house with their gentle warmth.

Rajat Kapoor is very good as the Muslim cop, and Prateik Babbar, despite his brief role, is memorable.

But the film in the end is owned by Kumud Mishra who delicately points at the Constitution and says, “Mandir mein bhashan, Sansad mein puja na ho toh achcha hai.”

I simultaneously burst into tears and an applause when he added, “Whenever you hear too much talk of ‘hum’ aur ‘woh’, election date zara check kar liya keejiye.”

And as I walked away from Mulk, marvelling at its crackling drama, high emotional quotient, its gritty appeal, whistle-worthy dialogues and politics, after a long time I doffed my hat to Bollywood.

Because when mainstream Bollywood begins to get it right, when it finds the strength to articulate what’s right and wrong in a way that sits with audiences for a long time, there is hope.