Film review: Black Friday

A still fromBlack Friday ->

Film review: Black Friday
By: Sarita Tanwar
February 10, 2007
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Black Friday
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Starring: Pawan Malhotra, Kay Kay Menon, Vijay Maurya, Aditya Srivastava, Gajraj Rao and Pankaj Jha
Rating: ****

WHAT’S IT ABOUT: It’s celebration time as Hindi cinema finally witnesses a glorious amalgamation of class and content.

Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday is a striking example of the emerging maturity of young filmmakers who are beginning to set parameters without succumbing to prevalent trends.

The success of Black Friday lies in its audacity to tell the story like it is — straightforward, rousing, thought provoking and stark. Never before has a docudrama been so effectively captured on celluloid; that’s Kashyap’s greatest achievement.

Based on S Hussain Zaidi’s book by the same name, Black Friday reveals the conspiracy behind the serial bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai in 1993. It gives us a glimpse into small-time smuggler Tiger Menon (Pawan Malhotra) who swore revenge on the city after rioters burned down his office during the communal clashes in 1992.

Tiger puts together a force, incites them with vengeful talk, gets them trained in Pakistan, uses them to plant bombs in the city and then deserts them by fleeing to Dubai. Additional Commissioner of Police, Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon), leads the investigation.

And even as the conspiracy theory is put together, most of the accused are arrested within two months. Badshah Khan, Asghar Mukadam, Bashir Khan and all those on the run — left behind by Tiger Menon to face the heat.

WHAT’S HOT: Anurag Kashyap’s film is a revelation in many ways. The director’s storytelling is novel, as he swims back and forth through the past and present, with each segment categorised in a chapter. Black

Friday plays the objective card, much in the spirit of Steven Spielberg’s Munich. He portrays the anger and helplessness of the accused just as poignantly as the frustration and anxiety of the cops. The violence isn’t justified, nor is it sensationalised. Kashyap had the creative freedom to make the content inflammatory for commercial reasons but the fact that he desists from it is commendable.

The film makes you relive all those horrific moments, but without that annoying in-your-face tone.

Crucial scenes are handled with care, thereby establishing Kashyap’s finesse: the pitiful plight of Badshah Khan; the interrogation sequences in the police station; Maria’s vulnerable yet unyielding stance throughout the investigation; the entire planting of bombs sequence; Dawood Phanse’s face-to-face encounter with Dawood Ibrahim; Imtiyaz Ghavate’s chase sequence with the hawaldar (hilarious).

The last scene of the film, where Tiger Memon hatches the plot with his Pakistani counterpart, has some hair-raising moments.

The dialogues have a lasting impact and cinematography by Nataraja Subramaniam maintains the mood of the film. The best, and perhaps most effective, aspect of the film is the casting by Gautam Kishanchandani — even the smallest of characters seem perfect for the part.

Performances are of the highest standards, with Pawan Malhotra leading the pack in his outstanding portrayal of Tiger Menon. It’s really sad that an actor of his calibre is being ignored by the industry.

Kay Kay Menon is incredibly cool as Rakesh Maria — his interrogation scene with Badshah Khan is the highlight. Among the rest, Aditya Srivastava (Badshah Khan), Gajraj Rao (Dawood Phanse) and Dibyendu Bhattacharya (Yeda Yakub) particularly stand out. Vijay Maurya, who plays Dawood Ibrahim, looks more like Dawood than Dawood himself!

WHAT’S NOT: Black Friday is a very difficult film to make because of the sheer volume of characters involved — each one having his or her own tale. The only aspect that seems missing is the Sanjay Dutt involvement, which was very much a part of the book.

Why Anurag chose to omit this chapter is a mystery. Maybe a few minutes of trimming would’ve enhanced the pace. The Yakub Menon track is a bit abrupt and would confuse viewers who don’t know the history of the blasts.

WHAT’S THAT: In the scene where Dawood Ibrahim offers to surrender to Ram Jethmalani, what’s that full bottle of whiskey doing on Jethmalani’s table?

WHAT TO DO: Black Friday is a triumph for Hindi cinema; it’s the winning stroke we’ve been waiting for. A must-see for every Mumbaikar.

*YUCK **WHATEVER ***GOOD ****SUPER *****AWESOME