There was a time
when Mahesh Bhatt used to make
films. Good, bad, ugly- whatever- but they were never business projects, just
stories that he used to put to life on celluloid. And more often than not they
were stories that emanated from the heart that aimed to strike a cord with the
hearts of the patrons. Strike a cord with hearts. Nothing above. Nothing below!
Thikana is one
such story that is quintessential Mahesh Bhatt of the 1980s. Emotionally
verbose, melodramatically intricate, perfectly imperfect, and remarkably
sinuous. And yet at the core the film’s simplicity is akin to a child bawling
in pain in front of his mother. Save the last thirty minutes when it deep-dives
into the pits of mediocrity, the film could have been a well remembered one.
The genre of the
movie can be defined as pulp fiction at best- the kind which is available in
abundance in the bookstalls of the railway stations across the country. The
sub-genres can be described as concentric circles- with mystery forming the
outermost circle, and drama forming the central core. The story is woven around
the travails of an idealist lawyer, Ravi, who is also unabashed drunkard. Anil Kapoor plays this wasted young man
who is pitied, detested, and admired in equal measure. This is established by
scene early on in the movie when an inebriated Ravi returns home one night to
the caustic remarks of his widowed mother and the comforting presence of his
elder sister Shashi (essayed by Smita
Patil). What follows next is a full blown melodrama where a semblance of sobriety
is incorporated through some wonderful dialogue. The very next morning,
however, normalcy is restored, acting as a subtle metaphor to the new day and
the fresh start it indicates.
Some other
powerful scenes follow, one in which when Ravi’s self-respect is questioned he
decides to do away with the ideals he had inherited from his father. In the
court of law, he is asked to prove that a young girl is of legally marriageable
age, when she clearly looks like being years away from that. How Ravi’s hands
waver while signing the testimony and how he admits to have been led astray by
his own insecurities, is a study in how a single powerful scene can etch out a
characterization that in most movies a series of scenes cannot. Some remarkable
scenes between Shashi’s fiancé Ranbir Singh (a police officer- enacted by a
superb Suresh Oberoi) and Ravi
follow. In fact it is the relationship between these two men and their
confrontations constitute the most emphatic part of the movie. A cameo by Anupam Kher is worth mentioning, but
just like the movie- it is overstretched and redundant beyond a point.
The most striking
part of this movie however is that each and every character has grey shades.
And thus the dialogue is so forthright that it gets uncomfortable for an
average Hindi movie watcher after a while. But what’s not unusual here is the
generous use of songs, and none of them worth a mention. And neither the
unnecessary and completely headache inducing last part of the movie, which kind
of overshadows the merits of the first three-fourth of the movie to a certain
extent. It looks like a lot of it shot keeping the commercial prospects of the
film in mind. But in retrospect it might have just backfired.
Performances
from Anil Kapoor and Suresh Oberoi are the highlights. Smita Patil is her usual
poor weepy self and Amrita Singh
(who plays Ravi’s love interest) is in her usual flashy yet lost avatar.
Parting Note: The film is
engrossing for most parts and has some remarkably well-written moments of drama.
However the last half an hour prevents this movie from being a fondly recalled
one.
Trivia: This film was released after Smita Patil's demise and thus its release was dedicated to her.
