NH10 - Reviews and Box-Office Updates - Page 14

'NH10'
A; Crime/Drama/Mystery
Director: Navdeep Singh
Cast: Anushka Sharma, Neil Bhoopalam, Darshan Kumaar
Rating:

Fancy a non-stop, relentless, edge-of-the-seat experience for close to two hours with your heart perpetually parked in your mouth? 'NH10' is that kind of a rare movie.

Anushka Sharma in 'NH10'. Pic/Santa Banta

Navdeep Singh, who gave us the delightful 'Manorama Six Feet Under', is thankfully back after eight years with this gritty, edgy, uncompromising film. The story (written by Sudip Sharma) is about an urban couple Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam), two young professionals from Bangalore, staying in Gurgaon. Otherwise capable and independent Meera gets the first taste of fear when she is attacked by a group of men while returning from work late in the night. Arjun plans to take her away to a holiday resort to get over the trauma. But on their way back, they happen to witness something absolutely unimaginable yet so disturbingly real that in an instant their holiday turns into a relentless horror story, as they desperately struggle to keep themselves alive.

Half of Navdeep's battle is won at the scripting stage itself, as here is a story guaranteed to jolt most of us living in urban cocoons out of our reverie, forcing us to look into certain grim truths that exist right outside the city limits. Through a powerful, gripping narrative of a desperately helpless couple struggling out of their nightmarish situation, Navdeep strips down the flimsy safety net of urban civility that we delude ourselves with, and boldly takes us through the rampant lawlessness, mindless casteism and sickening patriarchy that leads to honour killings.

Anushka Sharma plays Meera with admirable conviction. She goes all out to play this well fleshed-out character of an independent professional who is suddenly and violently thrown in a situation where she has to not only save her and her husband's life, but also more importantly, hold on to shreds of her dignity as a woman. Neil Bhoopalam gives good support. Darshan Kumaar is excellent as the ruthless Satbir. Deepti Naval's small but powerful role is beyond her comfort zone but she delivers it with a punch, literally.

If one has to point out drawbacks, some of the twists in the story seem too convenient and the second half dips a wee bit in energy as compared to the first half. But, overall, the choice of locations, the performances and the brutally honest take on a story that needed to be told, makes this film a hell of a scary ride but absolutely worth it. Don't miss it.

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It has been a little over seven years since Navdeep Singh's debut feature, Manorama Six Feet Under, released in theatres. Based on the Roman Polanski classic Chinatown (1974), Manorama... stood out at the time for the refreshing and relatively restrained manner in which it adapted Robert Towne's Oscar-winning screenplay to an Indian setting.

In an industry that has since evolved much less than its audience has but still endeavours to put out more wholly original films every year, it is quite surprising to learn that Singh has done the same thing a second time. NH10, credited to writer Sudip Sharma, is an Indianised adaptation of 2008 British horror-thriller Eden Lake, starring Kelly Reilly and a pre-Inglourious-Basterds Michael Fassbender.

The Internet had pointed this out a couple of weeks ago, of course, and it really begs the question: why, in 2015, have the makers not given credit where credit is due? Especially since Sharma has previously written Players (2012), which was an official remake of Hollywood film The Italian Job?

It is an odd decision, but if you can skip past this (which you shouldn't, technically) and think of Eden Lake merely as 'source material', NH10 isn't a bad movie. It opens nicely, with Karan Gour's refreshing background score setting a different tone, as we hear Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) have a conversation while the film shows us Gurgaon's infrastructural overload.

"If ever a Hindi film did not require songs or an interval, it is this."

Gurgaon proves to be a marvelous setting and a character all by itself. While Eden Lake's central theme dealt with the idea of 'Broken Britain' - a hot-button issue in the UK - NH10 uses Gurgaon and the state of Haryana to remind us that there are indeed two Indias. As a character wryly observes, "Gurgaon mein jahaan aakhri mall khatam hoti hai na, udhar hi tumhari democracy aur constitution bhi khatam ho jaati hai."

So while Meera and Arjun (a couple so yuppie they could feature in an iPhone ad) enjoy the benefits of bourgeois Gurgaon house parties, they are frequently reminded by events around them that they are in patriarchy-fuelled Haryana. After an unpleasant incident where Meera tries to drive to work late at night, the two decide to buy a gun. A few days later, they decide to go out of town to a 'private villa' to celebrate her birthday, taking the titular highway straight into Jat country.

The film takes flight when Arjun and Meera observe a gang abducting a boy and a girl at a dhaba, what looks then like a potential honour killing situation. Arjun tries to intervene, but is punched in the face by Satbir (Darshan Kumar). While Eden Lake dealt with so-called 'chav culture', NH10 casts an eye on the world of khap panchayats in areas where everyone is all too aware of which gotra they were born into and is definitely never afraid to pick a fight.

"It would, therefore, have been much more satisfying if the film had been ethical about its origins and gone all out."

To his credit, Singh's direction is tight and restrained enough to only allow two songs to disrupt his fear-and-blood-soaked narrative (if ever a Hindi film did not require songs or an interval, it is this). However, at no point is it as harrowing as its inspiration -- the violence, while still bloody, is tame in comparison to what Eden Lake puts you through. Sharma's script makes references to masculine entitlement in Gurgaon boardrooms as well as in a Haryana jungle - but these are more superficial than what we saw in the recent Dum Laga Ke Haisha. To be fair though, NH10 betters Eden Lake on one aspect: while the Brit film depicted nearly all its characters as dehumanised sadists, we do see some moments of redemption from some of the villagers here.

However, it does largely suffer from the same problem as its inspiration -- an agenda that encourages city-slicker paranoia about local yokels. So while Satbir and his gang (including a sometimes hilarious 'tauji' played by Ravi Jhankal) get a fair amount of screen-time, there is very little by way of character development for them. As if to make up for this, however, there is an extended cameo towards the end by a well-known actress, who plays a village sarpanch and is given meatier moments.

Bhoopalam, otherwise a decent enough actor, is an interesting casting choice but seems a little stiff in this role, which requires that his inherent nice-guy-ness disappear behind a cloud of forced machismo. Kumar, last seen in Mary Kom, simmers and growls but suffers from the script not really giving him the lines or moments he needs to be a truly effective antagonist.

Carrying the film on her able shoulders, then, is Anushka Sharma, who is more natural than we've ever seen her before. Switching between Hindi and English, brave and terrified, Sharma turns in a memorable performance and sets quite a few benchmarks for her fellow commercial leading ladies to live up to.

Overall, it would have been much more satisfying if the film had been ethical about its origins and gone all out. As it stands, NH10 is an watchable-enough adaptation of Eden Lake to pass muster. However, it probably would've turned out much better had it tried to be its own movie.

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Forget the creaky gates, flapping windows and banshee wails of the so-called horror movies which are manufactured with assembly-line monotony. The real horror resides on the roads and highways where marauders and prowlers lurk with all the evil force of modern-day servants of satan in search of prey.

As a road thriller about a couple waylaid by criminals on a bleak stretch of highway outside Gurgaon, NH10 holds a great amount of riveting resonance. As a thriller that tears into the monstrous gender inequalities that engender gruesome crimes such a honour killing', NH10 puts forward an even stronger case.

This is the beauty of this dark and passionate film. It works on a multiple level without evoking a selfconscious attitude of moral altitude. At the outset we see the well-to-do couple Meera (Anushka) and Arjun (Neil) take off on a celebratory weekend. It is Meera's birthday and boy, what a birthday it's going to be for her! By the time her car-wreck of a holiday stutters to a heaving sadistic halt Meera has lost her husband and has mowed down a slew of bigoted sociopaths.

The night ironically ends when Meera's revenge is complete. By the time you get even with your enemies, the act of vendetta loses its relevance. That's the way life is. That's the way life teaches us to exercise self-control. Turning a blind eye is one option of survival that Neil's character refuses to exercise. He looks for trouble. He can't turn away.

The film triumphs on every level, beginning with the script by Sudip Sharma which portrays both the gleaming glory and the gory side of Gurgaon in one deft and lucid range of vision. The film is so authentically shot by cinematographer Arvind Kannabiran that often-times we forget the locations, the people and situations are trapped in the frames of a film. The narrative has a sense of jump-out vigour and ruggedness that enthrals you and rivets you to the goings-on.

The dialogues range from the brilliantly ironic to the unmistakably authentic. When at the beginning Meera's car is attacked by two motorbike riding adventurers, the cop sighs and says, "Gurgaon is like a growing infant. It's bound to jump around."

NH10 is a relentlessly thoughtful, constantly edgy and dramatic telling of an urban fable, so real and yet so cinematic that you feast on the ferocious twists and turns wondering how Meera will ever wriggle out of her night-long nightmare.

During the film's stunning playing time when she desperately seeks help from cops and civilians and finally the slippery hard-of-hearing sarpanch of a village (Deepti Naval, in a refreshing change of image) Anushka Sharma has a wail' of time sinking her teeth into a part that gives her a chance to play the hero without losing her femininity. She is in walloping good shape here specially in her outburst scenes when she climbs a rocky mountain to escape her tormentors, or her scream of bloodcurdling protest after her husband's death.

Darshan Kumaar as the blood-thirsty honour' killer will freeze your blood. This very talented actor has too little playing-time on screen. Neil Bhoopalam , usually such a fine actor, here behaves more like Anushka's fan-boy than Meera's husband. It's the only false note in a film rooted in chilling realism.

A meanness of spirit pervades the arteries of this remarkably clenched film. A word of praise for the censor board for not tampering with the scenes of brutal violence, some of which involve gruesome violence against women. You can't have a film on the theme of honour killing' without showing the sheer brutality of a patriarchal system of lawless existence.

Director Navdeep Singh whose last and only other feature film was "Manorama 6 Feet Under", here creates a heroine who is...well, Meera 6 Feet Tall.

Chilling, nerve wracking, NH10 re-defines the thriller-horror genre. The scenes of violence with or without Anushka and Darshan Kumaar's combustive violence, display the kind of unalloyed starkness that Govind Nihalani or Dibakar Bannerjee (remember that episode on honour killing in "Love Sex and Dhokha") would approve of.

There is much to commend in this dark tale of a woman's night out with psychotic killers. Most of all, it coils its serpentine narrative around its character with such sinewy charm that your come away from the experience shaken, stirred and sobered down.

In one compassionate little scene an impoverished couple saves Meera from sure death. Such moments of kindness are rare. In the film as in real life. Hold on to them.

MTV Rates: 4/5

Movie Review NH10: Highway to hell...

Fri, Mar 13, 2015

NH10 review: It's a neatly constructed nail-biter!

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Film: NH10
Starring: Anushka Sharma, Neil Bhoopalam, Darshan Kumaar and Deepti Naval
Directed by Navedeep Singh
Rating: ****

What's it about: NH10 is a thriller directed by Navdeep Singh. Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) are a married working couple living in Gurgaon. One night on her way home from a party, she is attacked by a group of unknown men on a deserted road. She escapes, but the encounter leaves her traumatised. To make up for letting her travel alone that night, Arjun plans a birthday surprise for her out of the city. On one of their stops, they witness a young couple being picked up by a bunch of hoodlums. Arjun steps in, and gets slapped for his efforts. He follows them and soon they witness a brutal killing, which makes them the next target of the six men. And the highway becomes a road to hell.

What's good: Everything comes together in NH10, a great script, a good director and brilliant performances.The first 10 minutes creates a setting for what's about to follow. Then things get bad very, very quickly. Director Navdeep knows how to make the audience uneasy. He uses the heartlands to set the tone and the cold blooded characters to make your pulse pound. NH 10 is skillfully crafted and flawlessly (nod to the editor Jabeen Merchant) paced film that gives you the thrill of a horror. You will find yourself feeling increasingly nervous and edgy and there's no respite for either Meera or -- you -- the audience. At one point towards the climax, there is a moment which gives you hope and then suddenly delivers a sucker punch and brings you back to the edge of your seat. This film is rich, quality stuff that raises the bar for the genre of a road film. The biggest plus of Anushka Sharma's brave first production is that it stays true to itself. From the setting to the fights scenes, from the romance to the chase scenes, it's all real. And the scariest part being that this could really happen to you. NH10 works mostly thanks to Anushka, who is terrified and yet inspiring. She is a hero but also a damsel in distress. Darshaan Kumaar is also superb.

What's not: Not a thing.

What to do: It's a neatly constructed nail-biter. Go watch it.

All the best for today @AnushkaSharma !!!The trailer was mindblowing!Cant wait to watch the film!:-) #NH10