Movie Review – Inkaar (Hindi) – Where platitudes are plenitude!!

What everyone reveres in a Sudhir Mishra film is its ingrained ability to exceed expectations. So they are all excited about the portrayal of unseen side of Advertising industry in his new film Inkaar. The film, written by Manoj Tyagi, is the story of a woman who gets exalted quickly in the ad world; all thanks to her acumen and sudden-rush-of-blood creativity laced with loads of opportunism. Thus the film moves away from reality as the industry is not infested with epicurean lunatics and there are other methods to consolidate your career in advertising. This one-sided, women-centric approach marred an otherwise engaging tale. If Mishra wanted to make a film and showcase the guts, glory and gumption of his central characters then he should have picked a different fork.

Fantasies galore in this flick: advertising heads and copywriters getting ideas in a jiffy, a smack in the middle of an acrid verbal combat between boss and subordinate, for that matter, deep discussions under dim lights in hotel rooms. So work and play are always hand in glove.

The leading lady, Maya (Chitrangada Singh), shoots up to the position of National creative director and subsequently finds a place on the board.  This comes after she leaves Mumbai, the birth place of her career which takes shape in the mighty hands of venerated ad guru, Rahul (Arjun Rampal), and their unsightly break-up. As she is professionally equal to Rahul that instigates a fight for best among equals. All this torture drama leads to Maya filing a case of sexual harassment against Rahul. 

What forms rest of the story is who tastes victory, and how? The writer and the director have an uncanny answer to this intriguing question and that foils the sole objective of the film. What could have been a gripping view on present day relationships in a frenzied, compulsive work culture is single-handedly ruined by contorted puffery and preposterous ending. I hope by now loads of other flicks which are based on similar story-line crossed your path. Good that you are not derailed from your objective of cracking the nut and spotting the difference.

The film’s story has lot of promise, but it ebbs on banalities and unrealities. The writing is riveting in parts, not in its totality. The ups and downs at workplace, an onerous and unyielding professional life, getting things done in the nick of time, may instantly strike a chord with the (b)ad (m)ad world. Inkaar starts with an audacious prologue and holds fervor in its earlier pages, and could have been truly revolutionary. But as the film meanders towards the epilogue it becomes a film that prefers to revoke, rather than invoke more promise. Arjun and Chitrangada struggled to give the film heaviness by bringing earnestness to their roles. But, sadly, they could not hold the film’s structure that’s built on half-baked bricks.

Director Sudhir Mishra uses the flashback format – which he’s perfected since long time - to narrate the pivotal elements of the story. Deepti Naval as the head of a committee plays a crucial role when she interrogates people and takes their version. This again is inspired from French noir alongside traces of few Holly / Bolly flicks. Non-linear narratives just happen and no one forces them to happen. If you want to steer every story to a non-linear side then it may fall into abyss. Hope the director didn’t learn some lessons from his last outing Yeh Saali Zindagi. Here, in the film, same stories – word-for-word rendition - are told with different point of view making it a boring ensemble. This film is nowhere close to Mishra’s earlier epic films - Is Raat ki Subah Nahin, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, etc. - where incisive dramaturgical machinery made naturalism silver-tongued. Inkaar nestles on stereotypes making it a clumsy attempt at delineating a germane issue.

Bottom-line: In spite of the seeping melodrama Inkaar is watchable at places, but the saddening part is that its poise goes haywire. This taut thriller further gets dampened with the repeated use of a self-patented tool and a chink-in-the-armor like climax. The lead actors shine in their roles, but eventually the farcical convolutions of the story and its seemingly uncanny treatment submerge the awesome. Albeit the film has a fresh approach with its take on sexual harassment at work as its main theme, it fails miserably in nurturing the main characters’ roles with intensity. When someone asks you whether to watch this film or not? You will certainly find yourself in a catch-22 situation to say a YES or a NO!!

My Rating: Expectation – 7/10; Reality – 4/10