Its a Jungle out there. And no one other than Prakash Jha knows how to present the Jungle, its inhabitants and the events better on screen. After 'Gangajal', Prakash Jha comes up with yet another gripping tale of an organized crime in the cow belt, this time picking up the issue of 'Apaharan' i.e. kidnapping. No, he doesn't try to solve the issue but presents to audience the tale of what happens behind the scene of this organized crime. While both the print and satellite media merely flashes the headlines, the director has gone a few steps ahead to show the 'why' and the 'how' of it!
The film begins with the newspaper clippings and satellite channels breaking news about kidnapping in the state of Bihar that is happening on an almost daily basis. Amongst all this, there is Ajay Shastri [Ajay Devgan], a medical representative, who aspires to get into police department. In spite of two failed attempts, he hasn't lost hope and gets ample support from his love Megha [Bipasha Basu]. His father Professor Raghuvansh Shastri [Mohan Aghashe] is a Gandhian, a man of principles and aims at exposing the lawbreakers.
Meanwhile the government is being run through the nexus of Home Minister [Chetan Pandit] and Tabrez Alam [Nana Patekar], and in their scheme of things the people involved are politicians, police, criminals and bureaucrats. A political leader of the minority, Tabrez is ruthless and uses the name of religion to keep his flag high. Gaya Singh [Yashpal Sharma] is the prime member of his gang and operates from jail while Murali [Murali Sharma] is the middleman who 'arranges' for the kidnapping. There are a few honest folks like Anwar Khan [Mukesh Tiwari], a cop and Akash Ranjan [Anoop Soni], a journalist who represent that facet of society that still has some conscience left.
Ajay's dream of getting into police is just round the corner when a scandal breaks that results in him loosing the job. Meanwhile his father's life is in danger and he is left with no option than to join the world of crime. He gets his first kidnapping assignment that turns out to be a failed attempt and leads him to jail. He soon gets himself out and after killing Gaya Singh joins the gang of Tabrez Alam. From this point on the story takes a political turn as Ajay becomes more and more powerful and starts ruling the world of crime. But does crime always pay?
There have been number of movies made in the past that have told the story of mislead youth but what makes 'Apaharan' different is that rather than getting into sermonizing, it just fleshes out all the details on screen through a powerful script that doesn't try to dwell into black and white. While the first half of the movie goes into the minutest details of the kidnapping industry and how it functions, the second half becomes a political drama where nothing is predictable.
First one and a half hour of the movie is extremely powerful with things moving at rapid face and events unfolding at a pace that stun you and sometimes even bring a chuckle along. Even in the second half emergence of Ajay from a meek and frightened man to someone gradually rising to power has been well handled. There are number of memorable sequences in the film; especially the one where Gaya Singh is shown to be operating from jail with all the facilities and later Ajay entering the same jail that has been decorated to suit his taste. His entire body language takes the film to a different level altogether. As always, he comes up with yet another superlative performance.
In the second half, things do tend to become too complex for comfort and an average viewer who has come for entertainment may start feeling his brains to be taxed to a large extent as the entire political turmoil starts becoming a bit too much for him to comprehend. Entire drama about changing political fortunes, horse trading, enemies becoming friends, Ajay being used as a pawn makes the proceedings too tense and one needs to have a high level of concentration to make out what's happening on screen. Also there is a sequence or two that tend to get Bollywood-ish hence turning out to be a distraction from the otherwise tout narrative. An example to state is the businessman's kidnapping done in broad daylight by Ajay and his accomplices dressed up as South Indian taxmen. Simply unwarranted!
Apart from this the movie sticks on to its theme with Jha spinning a tale with marked precision. He extracts wonderful performances from his starcast with both Ajay and Nana coming up trumps. This time around Nana emotes in an uncharacteristic style of his by speaking less and telling more through his facial expressions and body language. Mohan Aghashe plays someone who is easily identifiable while Chetan Pandit is quite effective. Yashpal Sharma and Mukesh Tiwari continue to be reliable in front of camera and carry. Murali Sharma is decent but Anoop Soni, Akhilendra Sharma, Ayub Khan and Dayashankar Pandey hardly get any screen time to prove their mettle. Bipasha Basu is there only because a Hindi film is not complete without a heroine. Her role could have been completely chopped off at the scripting stage itself.
Cinematography by Arvind K. goes with the theme of the movie and has an earthy appeal. Dialogues deserve 10 out of 10. Editing by Santosh Mandal could have been better in the second half. Wayne Sharp comes up with a good background score for the second time after Gangajal. Action by Jai Singh Nijjar is racy.
'Apaharan' has reference points to all movies belonging to its genre like Company, Satta, Vaastav or Sehar but is by and large an original product. The movie would find appreciation amongst an audience that looks for real life being depicted on the silver screen. Strong performances by the lead characters and hammer strong dialogues would only help the cause further.
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