You get a half-volley and instead of putting it away, you get caught at mid-off! And that's the anguish you feel when you know that the movie you are watching is sitting on a plum plot and is going to get wasted!
ASHOK’s FIVE reviews #Kaagaz on #Zee5, a 2021 biographical film that tells the story of #LalBihari’s 18 year-old fight against the Indian system to establish that contrary to the official documents, he was alive and well! Written and directed by #SatishKaushik and produced by #SalmanKhanFilms, the cast includes #PankajTripathi, #MonalGajjar, #AmarUpadhayay, #MitaVashisht and #SatishKaushik himself. I was hoping that this would set off my binge watching to a great start in the new year but #Kaagaz let me down. Then came #Taandav and suddenly #Kaagaz looked like great stuff. But #Taandav is another story. Another time.
#Kaagaz pegs itself on the acting prowess of one man - #PankajTripathi and he doesn't disappoint. He plays Bharat Lal, who runs a band bajaa business. He approaches a local bank for a loan, only to find that his own Uncle and family have declared him dead legally and usurped the family estate. Bharat then takes it upon himself and makes it his life mission to take on the “system” and get the papers sorted.
The title of the film is a clever innovation. Think about it - central to the plot is the notion of ‘paper’ and not the hero or the mission or even his life. In India, paper and the system determine not just who you are but even whether you exist or not! As the expressions of the authorities move from incredulous helplessness to animosity and even hostility, it is a battle for self-esteem in the current age of intolerance.
I am not sure why there are two narrators. First, there is #SalmanKhan who steps in to set up the context. Then there is #SatishKaushik, Bharat Lal’s lawyer who takes it upon himself to also narrate the story at a certain point. More important though, this strange brand of biography infused with comedy doesn't really work. In my view, the idea was perhaps to leverage #PankajTripathi’s patent brand of half-verbalised, half-expression humour but when it comes to a plot like this, it doesn't work.
The setting is the late seventies. Certain references to the Emergency, the elections that Bharat Lal fights with #RajivGandhi sparks some interest but on the whole, it fails to impress. Writer #ImtiazHussain is unable to sustain the drama and #Kaagaz ends up as a waste of talent and story. Lazy editing, single-track narrative and poor and untimely jokes are the bane of the film.
#PankajTripathis is of course brilliant. That opening scene where he has a heart-to-heart chat with a rat before letting it free is almost made for him. In an age when exemplary character actors like #SanjayMishra and #RajkummmarRao are able to carry off entire scripts on their shoulders, my reckoning is that #Kaagaz goes under not because of the acting; the gravitas of a plot such as this requires a different treatment. And that's exactly where the problem lies; the force-fitted item song and the facetious brand of humour make it almost a dated film that belongs somewhere in the nineties!
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