Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas review: works for its compelling performances

Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas review: works for its compelling performances

Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas review - Bhagwat unfolds as a fascinating character study of a psycho killer. Despite its dark texture and depressing tonality, it works for its compelling performances while keeping you invested its cat-and-mouse face-off between the cop and the killer.

Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas movie review

Made by Akshay Shere, sees Arshad Warsi play the titular cop who investigates the disappearance of a women in Roberts Ganj. Based on real incidents that occurred during October 2009 somewhere in the northern hinterland of India, the inquiry deepens with clues that hint at the involvement of a prostitution racket and a disarmingly mysterious man who’s something more than a mere teacher. What begins as a case of one woman, snowballs into a chain of multiple missing girls as Bhagwat and his team deep dive into the complex hive that harbours many secrets.

 

Amidst the unfolding chaos, a tender romance begins to take shape between Meera (Ayesha Kaduskar and Sameer (Jitendra Kumar). Their growing connection adds an unexpected layer of romance and vulnerability to the narrative, offering a striking contrast to the tension that drives the story forward.

It doesn’t take them long to nab the culprit behind the missing and killing of nineteen innocent girls spread over a period of four years, but the challenge lies in proving him guilty. Bhagwat soon transforms into a courtroom drama where the cop and the culprit engage in an intense battle of justice. Unfolding as a fascinating and chilling excursion into the mind of the psychopathic killer whose cool demeanor forms a façade to his sinister identity, Bhagwat drapes itself with a dark texture and depressing tonality.

Shere, who made ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ in 2010 and hails from the RGV stable, creates a somber Robersganj and discomfort with haunting visuals and a grim narrative that encapsulates the troubled past of its protagonist. Constantly batting his inner demons, Viswas Bhagwat is a man with anger management issues and who treads the tightrope of paagalpan and passion. I remember Arshad Warsi playing a man in uniform last in Sehar (2005). Usually, seen in comic and sprightly roles, he plunges into a dark territory this time and gets the beats of the cop correct. But it’s a radical departure for Jitender Kumar who plays his nemesis and topples his cards. The actor takes a giant leap by breaking the mould of light-hearted characters played in Panchayat and Kota Factory and delve into a complicated mind with so much of finesse. Kumar navigates both the outwardly ordinary, the vulnerability and innocence, the romantic as well as the sinister cocooned inside Sameer with great ease.

 

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