Chakravyuh…. It’s all about going round and round. Review on Chakravyuh

When I first saw the promo/trailer of Prakash Jha’s Chakravyuh a couple of months ago, I was blown away. I so wanted to see this movie, especially since I had quite liked his earlier outing, ‘Rajneeti’ which I saw twice.

But Chakravyuh which is apparently on a larger canvas somehow disappointed and I am still trying to figure out why or where.  Well, don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad movie, its quite interesting and comes close to touching your heart at places. But it doesn’t quite get there.  Maybe it’s the somewhat Bollywoodish treatment of  the story where the Superintendent of Police Adil Khan (Arjun Rampal) sends his now-friend, now-foe Kabir (Abhay Deol) as a ‘spy’ into the badlands of Naxal forests to find out and give him information about the elusive Naxal leader, Rajan (Manoj Bajpai).

So after a few flashbacks of the ‘great to waste’ friendship between the two male actors, we see Kabir winning the trust of the otherwise hardened Maoists.  On the sidelines of the film are Adil’s pretty wife Rhea (Esha Gupa) playing an intelligence officer, Govindbabu (Om Puri) , the ideological leader of the Naxals, Mahanta (Kabir Bedi) the mega rich industrialist from London, keen to exploit the mineral wealth of the jungles and promising prosperity and development to the poor, exploited tribals (‘We will build International Schools for your children’) and sundry ministers and police officers.  And Juhi (Anjali Patil) as the firebrand lady Naxal leader who seems to smile for the first time only after Kabir joins their toli.

So the story which doesn’t have much of a plot, which is the greatest tragedy of this film (unlike Rajneeti), just moves from one blast to another, from one scene of exploitation to another. Mind you, it keeps you engrossed yet as I said, something seems missing. And here’s what it is : There is really not much of a deeper, intense or closer  look into the real nature of the Tribals and Naxal issue.  Jha seems to try to balance between the police/governmental forces and the emotive issues of tribal exploitation and the Naxals.  A rather tame balancing act, one may add.

We do get some idea of the difficult conditions under which the tribals live in our jungles (an average newspaper story also tells us that) and the complete indifference to their plight by the government, its machinery and of big businesses,  who all only want to make their own billions. The medium of movies and films which could have depicted this in a more true to life format is missing.  Everything seems kind of superfluous, superficial.  One expected more ‘heart’ from a Prakash Jha film and on a topic as emotive as this.

And this is the Chakravyuh from which, it seems, it will take commercial, mainstream Hindi films, quite some time to get out of.

To thus be fair to Jha, he has not gone over the top and seems pretty restrained. The performances from the cast are quite likable, including those who play small but significant roles.  Anjali Patil stands out as the firebrand Naxal leader whose sense of purpose is more important than giving in to the feelings of the heart. Arjun Rampal and Abhay Deol give nuanced performances and thankfully Manoj Bajpai is not shown as some crazy leader but a very average, typical human thrown into a difficult position, who when required to, can also be brutal – but really, not that chilling. Esha Gupta is fine to watch.  How you wish Jha had cast Mallika Sherawat or Rakhee Sawant for that one item number instead of Sameera Reddy, to up the oomph quotient.  But here again he is quite restrained and possibly not meaning to.

Would I recommend the movie ? Yes, surely. And more so to sensitize the aam aadmi of our metros and cities, who lead comparatively comfortable lives, to the sad plight of our tribal fellow citizens, who we are told are unfortunately at war with their own country. The question that begs to be answered is why are they at this war ? Even if the vast machinery of the government someday quells this, will their lot have improved ? Would the destruction of their habitats, livelihood and environment for so called development, have stopped ? Would they have got a decent, respectable and safe life, not torn apart from their forest roots? These are questions which the film hardly tackles. Maybe Mr Jha may come up with a sequel. Hopefully not, if the treatment is going to be just as bland and superficial. But ‘Chakravyuh’ is not the compulsive viewing which its promos promised before its release.  It’s not even good enough for a second dekko. And that’s the sad part of this story.

Rating : Two and a Half Stars.

Film Reviewed by : Parvez J Daruwala