'Afwaah' movie review: Waah AF!

Movie AfwaahDirector Sudhir MishraActors Nawzuddin Siddiqui Bhumi PednekarRating 355Akhlaq I suspect has inspired Afwaah By which I mean Mohammed Akhlaq 52 who was lynched by a vigilante mob in a village in Dadri Uttar Pradesh over a mere afwaahrumour of calf slaughter in 2015No this movie has nothing to do with the said incident Only a random guy gets killed by a momentarily deranged rioter Sharib Hashmi in a slaughterhouse in the opening sequenceThis is when a prominent local politician Sumeet Vyas is delivering a speech in a mohalla The unplanned madness that ensues could lead to lsquopolitical benefitsrsquo along religious lines is how the young neta feels after the said murdertragedyWhich is a sociopathic lesson subscribed to by politicians for so long that it echoes something the philosopher Seneca said back in the frickinrsquo times of the Roman Empire ldquoReligion is regarded by the common people as true by the wise as false and by rulers as usefulrdquoAs are potent rumours slander and falsehoods especially in the current times of social media where everyone with a smart phone is a broadcaster mdash basically doing the job of journalists mdash only without immediate checks and consequences for spreading halftruths or fake newsBy the time the public gets to the shattered heart of the matter if they ever do the irreparable damage is done So is the case with the lead pair in this filmThe girl Bhumi Pednekar believably surviving a trainwreck is on the run from the said young politician she was supposed to marry mdash not everybody is devoid of conscience Some like the state policechief in this movie can develop it later as well thatrsquos the perennial hopeThe guy Nawazuddin Siddiqui is simply driving through a smalltown on way to a swish literary event Essentially the opening sequence triggers off a series of events such that the totally unrelated guy and girl find themselves together mdash escaping a bloody mobThe 124minute film that follows is so breathless in pursuit of a thriller that there is little if any space at all to stage an engaging drama between the leads or any other characters in factCuts are quick Camera follows moving action Itrsquos hard to trace back the causal effects and keep track of whorsquos who or where in the timeline mdash and that is probably why the movie feels flat in the middle Which at least is better than bloated Maybe thatrsquos just in the nature of rumours that fly fast As must a movie on itNawaz plays a suave accomplished headhoncho from the advertising world whorsquos returned from America to live a promised Indian urbane dream To be honest itrsquos not the character that Irsquod instantly identify with Nawaz Surely all actors have their limitations Except great ones like him can overcome it better than othersBy the way I felt the same about Nirmal Pandey as a posh South Bombay adexecutive in Sudhir Mishrarsquos Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin 1996 Which was a thriller set entirely over a single nightAs is Mishrarsquos Afwaah I recently rewatched Is Raathellip and it may be fair to suggest it hasnrsquot aged as well as I thought it would Must add Mishra as a filmmaker full disclosure friend has aged way better To my mind hersquos the only Indian filmmaker of his generation he debuted as director in 1987 whorsquos as active and relevantIs Raathellip was in many ways precursor to the Bombay underworld noir that progressively became a jaded Hindi film genre post the immeasurable success of Satya 1998 Likewise Mishrarsquos underrated Inkaar 2013 well preceded MeToo and conversations around malefemale relations in work places With Afwaah hersquos on to something equally prescient if not morePolitically we can already sense the global impact of farming misinformation and propaganda on flatsurface platforms like WhatsApp YouTube Facebook etc Itrsquoll only get worse until itrsquos curbed mdash especially when it comes to dragging innocent individuals into the Internet of organised judgemental mobsIrsquod heavily recommend Ron Jonsonrsquos nonfiction book So Yoursquove Been Publicly Shamed 2015 for how lives of regular folk have been potentially getting destroyed for a while now The virtual inevitably spills on to the real If you separate the individual from the collective what constitutes a frenzied mob anywayMishra summarily shines a light on it through the beautifully blinded Sharib Hashmirsquos character Hersquos a loyalist to his political boss Sumeet Vyas mdashto whom hersquos simply usefulItrsquos the sort of person usually left unexamined in inherently political films mdash Dibakar Banerjeersquos Shanghai 2012 is my last memory of it mdash unless of course you again rely on nonfiction like say Snigdha Poonamrsquos Dreamers How Young Indians are Changing the World 2018And there is that thumbrule of power isnrsquot it mdash you dosay what you can get away with until you canrsquot Equally for this brave lirsquol film set in a fictitious Western Province WP which is obviously Rajasthan and could well be UP The conflict at the centre of this script is religion Namely a society where being Muslim foremost sounds like a strangely untouchable curse for those who arenrsquotTo what extent is this the Indian groundreality I wouldnrsquot know for sure Itrsquos certainly what you come across daily scrolling socialmedia platforms like Twitter named Qitter hereMost peaceful avocado lovers I know claim to have quit Twitter as a result That must be privilege what else mdash remaining good by staying quiet There are enough issues of our own in the manicured gardens to deal with mdash who wants to unnecessarily invite filthjhamela from the outside world Best to keep shut the wellguarded gates Thatrsquos literally a scene in AfwaahAlso Read Afwaah Bhumi Pednekar Nawazuddin Sidiqqui and Sudhir Mishra react to rumours

'Afwaah' movie review: Waah AF!

Movie: Afwaah
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Actors: Nawzuddin Siddiqui, Bhumi Pednekar
Rating: 3.5/5

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'Afwaah' movie review: Waah AF!

'Afwaah' movie review: Waah AF!

Movie: AfwaahDirector: Sudhir MishraActors: Nawzuddin Siddiqui, Bhumi PednekarRating: 3.5/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Movie: Afwaah
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Actors: Nawzuddin Siddiqui, Bhumi Pednekar
Rating: 3.5/5