29. Raman Raghav 2.0

From the moment Nawazuddin Siddiqui appears on the screen with a deep scar coming from the top of his forehead all the way down to his nose, he owns Raman Raghav 2.0. The man’s presence as the serial killer – no, that’s not a spoiler – is as magnetic as it is repulsive. Anurag Kashyap seems to have constructed him as the embodiment of everything that is despicable in human nature. Physical, mental and sexual violence come to him naturally and the police are no match for him. In fact, the police force is shown either as deviant (Vicky Kaushal as the drug-addict police officer) or benign (soft spoken, roly poly officers unable to give chase to a criminal).

The first half of RR2.0 is like a Dementor's kiss. It squeezes out all hope and fear runs through like a slithering snake in the grass. You have no control over it, you know it is around and you resignedly wait for it to strike. The second half is somewhat of a relief as the hunter and the hunted circle each other to an unexpected climax. While it is a relief from the viewer’s perspective, I felt the storytelling weakened a bit. Thank God for that!
Broken up into eight episodes, RR2.0 is a masterclass in the making of thrillers. In the first half, The Sister episode is twenty two minutes of pure terror. You don’t know what is going to happen. After a point, you don’t know what to feel. Sickening violence – both physical and mental – hit you in stomach, even inconsequential sequences building towards the climax.

In a way, RR2.0 is a classic chase thriller. A serial killer is on the loose and a cop is after him. How it plays out is where it makes a departure.
The hero is not like regular heroes. He is a misogynistic, drug addicted, commitment-phobic asshole with whom women can't but fall in love. The serial killer (seemingly) has none of the intellectual method of a Hannibal Lecter or the smoothness that we see in American TV shows. The cop snorts cocaine at a crime scene, with dead bodies lying around. The criminal kills a woman and sings Sheila ki jawaani as a lullaby to her child. The grungy, dirty, shady parts of Mumbai form an unusual backdrop where we flit between nightclubs, dance bars, slums, sweatshops, claustrophobic 2BHKs and even cramped lifts as unlikely scenes of action.

Raman Raghav is an iconic figure in Indian popular culture. By putting that name in the title, a certain kind of expectation is raised and RR2.0 uses that expectation very cleverly to create suspense and the eventual denouement. It helps all the departments – art, makeup, casting, music and above all, writing – perform magnificently and absolutely to the brief. And in the end, RR2.0 doesn’t just kick ass. It kicks you in the balls.

Interesting tidbit: The promos for RR2.0 are different in a way because they have scenes that don't feature in the final film but give glimpses into the two main characters' psyche. Check out this, this, this and this in which the serial killer is finishing off people and this one in which the police officer recounts his life of crime.

Frivolous Footnote: Mukesh Chhabra, Anurag Kashyap’s regular casting director, plays the loan shark who provides a vital lead to reach Raman.

Slight Spoiler Question: Why did the sister not call in the police when she came out of the house?

Comments

Krishanu said…
Watched this movie a couple of weeks ago. Was blown away! And did not find any glowing reviews; was left wondering if I was the only one who felt that way.