She starts out looking all chirpy, with the fakest smile plastered across a human face. She ends up coming across as a strange psychotic terrorist of sorts. Or, at least, is meant to
A still from the film
A Thursday
On: Disney+ Hotstar
Dir: Behzad Khambata
Cast: Yami Gautam, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 1/5
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While they’re not even similar looking, I’ve no idea why I get confused between actors Yami Gautam and Vani Kapoor, when their names are mentioned. There is no reason, really. Far more unreasonable is this film actually — starring Gautam in the lead and centre, right through till the end.
She starts out looking all chirpy, with the fakest smile plastered across a human face. She ends up coming across as a strange psychotic terrorist of sorts. Or, at least, is meant to. She’s held to ransom over a dozen children at a crèche that she runs. And which is fully part of an existing Mumbai apartment block/home, where she’s lodged with her fiancé.
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The sweet-looking, petite Gautam’s character has also managed to fully tape up and tie down two bulky adults to chairs as well. All through the show, that involves gun shots fired indoors, the massive group of children with tunnel vision towards a TV screen, and whatever else, remain quietly seated in near still position. Unaware, enchanted.
Kids, impatient and inquisitive by nature (sometimes unbearably so), I guess, are blessed with a better sixth sense than adults. This is the most silent, ‘shaant’ lot you’ve ever known. Damn, even I could manage this crèche.
The ridiculousness of what follows may not merit a review as such—more like a warning even to the Prime Minster of India, for protocols to follow, if there is a hostage crisis that calls for personal intervention of the head of state. I suspect the PM mustn’t be allowed at a striking distance of a potential assassin.
The PM here, looking a lot like a doppelgänger of Sonia Gandhi — guess who; Dimple Kapadia — is hit by the urgency to save the children. “Emotion can be an asset,” she says. “System ke shikaar,” she adds later, for the female perpetrator of the potential crime. But her assistants won’t have her engage.
Within minutes they’ve conducted national opinion polls with results in their hands. Talking to an abductor is bad political move. Will she, won’t she, is the point — since the PM, you see, is already in Mumbai travelling for work. IC814 Kandahar hijacking (1999) is summoned to public memory.
Forget the motive behind this crime, what’s clearer, first frame onwards, is the motive of this movie. It’s a pandemic production. Which is to say a lot can be achieved within few locations, and a containable cast of characters. ‘Low cost, therefore much benefit’ analysis suggests there will be a buyer among so many OTT platforms, desperate for content, anyway.
And why not A Thursday — named after and inspired by the sleeper-hit film, A Wednesday (2008). That similarly staged a cat and mouse chase between a lone citizen on the phone, and the Mumbai police at the other end.
I was possibly in a minority among audiences, who hadn’t rated A Wednesday well. Given crowds clapping at the end of the movie in theatres, and the point of A Wednesday being vigilante justice, of course.
To be fair, you examine the point, if at all, only once the plot seems in place. Far from the case here. As you watch the action intermittently shift to a news television studio, with the ticking clock of a disaster and reality TV-like captive drama. Obviously reminds you of the other, recent pandemic picture — an equally incredulous, shoddy, although a much superior production in comparison, Dhamaka (2021).
The news anchor in this film has just had her child released in the ongoing hostage crisis. Instead of dealing with her kid, she’s back to the studio, dying to break news on live television. Right.
What if this film was altogether a play? You’d watch it solely for the actors involved, I guess. Which is why I had once clicked on another pandemic feature, similarly to do with a cop, mysterious citizen, and phone calls between them — Dial 100 (2021), starring Manoj Bajpayee and Neena Gupta, that could’ve so done with much dialing down.
That said, performers can transcend a script, only given what’s in it. What you’re understandably surrounded by here is so much ‘gandi’ acting over a girl with a gun, that it had a pretty strange effect on my brain. For no reason, again, I find myself humming the Indian Ocean song, ‘Arey ruk jaa re bande. Arey thum jaa re Thursday’. Okay, I need help (or a drink); now.
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