bollywood life 4/5
https://twitter.com/bollywood_life/status/1144099696949915649
bollywood bubble 3.5/5
https://twitter.com/bollybubble/status/1143938418478424064
The Quint 4/5
https://twitter.com/TheQuint/status/1144242894598893568
ABP News (subhash k jha) 5/5
MOVIE REVIEW: 'Article 15' is what cinema is meant to be, Rating: ****
Movie: Article 15
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Rating: *****(5 stars)
In one word, "Article 15" is spellbinding. It is everything that cinema was always meant to be. Thoughprovoking, questioning, disturbing and ultimately cathartic because the cop-hero (played with a simmering intensity by Ayushmann Khurrana) succeeds in getting justice for the wronged.
In real life it is different, though. And in giving the underdogs of the film a satisfying closure Director Anubhav Sinha (who has clearly turned a new leaf after Mulk) and his co-Writer(Gaurav Solanki) remind us that happy endings are for the movies, and that we are getting one here because, hey, no matter how authentic, "Article 15" is a film after all.
Before anything more, I must say it is hard to believe the level of political credibility and social conscientiousness Anubhav Sinha's cinema has acquired after "Mulk". "Article 15" goes even further than "Mulk" in search of the truth that lies underneath the veneer of fairness and justice for all.
Sinha's stunning film says a lot of things we don't really want to hear about social discrimination in the cowbelt areas. The movie takes us to a dusty little town in Uttar Pradesh where a sophisticated liberal cop (Khurrana) joins duty and immediately stumbles onto a horrific caste crime whereby two girls are gangraped and hung by a tree. A third girl is gone missing. Sinha imparts to the search for the girl a 'thriller' element that in no way over-dramatizes the film's incessantly grim mood. The Director has no songs even in the background because there is nothing to sing about. Not now. Not here.
In telling this hideously messy tale, Sinha makes no effort to spare usA the details. The caste system and gender discrimination are so deeply embedded in the social fabric of rural India that men, or at least a section of them, feel entitled to teach women a lesson if they don't comply.
In my favourite sequence of this exceptionally relevant drama the cop-hero interrogates the main accused in the gangrape. Listen to the casual almost blasé tone in which the criminal tells the cop Ayan Ranjan why the women they raped and killed so brutally had to be a taught a lesson. I heard the same unrepentant tone in the Netflix series Delhi Crime when one of the rapists tells the cop the girl had to be put in her place.
The sequence is chilling for the way the masculine mind works in a male-dominated society.
I would have liked to see Khurrana's rage more overtly expressed in the scene above. But for reasons best known to this brave actor and his braver Director, the performance invariably holds back, checks itself from losing its cool. It is the sign of a civilized bureaucrat's struggle with his self to cling to his core of humanism and civility while all around him the world crumbles and collapses into heap of brutality incivility.
The film has an exceptionally astute sense of pitch and tone. Though the background score is a wee flashy, Anubhav Sinha never over-punctuates his drama. He is not afraid to let the world he recreates glisten with the sweat of inhuman conduct. The actors are all so clued into the Director's kingdom of the damned that they blissfully slip into their roles with no apprehension of tripping over the abyss of selfconscious authenticity.
Besides Khurrana who brings a feeling of bridled indignation to every scene,the film's other hero is Ewan Mulligan's cinematography. It doesn't miss a single detail in the ravage and chaos of the heartland, so unpolished andA yet do untouched. The sound design is impeccable, catching incidental noises in the small town like butterflies in a moth jar.
"Article 15" is a film that must be seen by every Indian. Not because it tells us something Anew. But because what it tells us ought to become irrelevant to our society by now. But oppression, like the films on oppression, have a knack of coming back when we feel it is gone.
At one point the hero confesses he needs to "unmess" the mess created by social discrimination. It is a mean savage world out there for women and men of meager income. That Anubhav Sinha takes onA the onus of splitting wide open the debate between the haves and have-nots is no small achievement. The Director deserves a standing ovation for putting the cinema of social awakening back on screen without any selfcongratulation.
BY SUBHASH K. JHA
Khurana is the next big thing! Andhadhun, Badhai Ho & now this!! I hope the film does well for its genre. It’s a dark film so not many might be able to muster courage or energy to see it (understandably). But hope it’s discussed as much as Kabir Singh is being discussed.
I wanted to watch but the way they twisted it from real incident and twisted it to brahmin bashing, i dont wanna watch it anymore. Have guts to show real incident if u r making a movie on it
I am looking forward to seeing this movie on Friday. AK is an amazing actor. He is best at choosing out of the box script. I always look forward to his movie.
Someone please authenticate if what I ham hearing is true. The changed the caste if culprit yet calling it as true story.
If it is and ayushmann is part of it.. really disheartening. 😒
Originally posted by: Zeal17Someone please authenticate if what I ham hearing is true. The changed the caste if culprit yet calling it as true story.
If it is and ayushmann is part of it.. really disheartening. 😒
Its based on a true story. Means they did not say its the same story....IN real life upper caste raped OBC, and in this also Upper caste raped Dalit.
Ideally that should only be relevant.
But in India caste is everything. So Brahmins are getting angry that why are we shown as rapists when actually Yadavs raped. So here Brahmin is shown as a bad guy and the good guy, the hero who avenges the death. But of course no one notices the good guys being brahmins...we want to take offence and we will.
Now why did he change the castes? Who knows....but all Indians need to take from the story is that upper castes have and will continue to dominate over lower castes...and we need to change that. Then maybe we can do away with reservations as well....
One thing I could not understand how this became anti Hindu. Because everyone is Hindu in the movie....but I have read many comments saying that as well...who knows
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