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The good points first: the film is based on the rape of Parima (Kani Kusruti), a housewife while returning alone at night via Delhi’s Metro. She is abducted by a group of youngsters in a car and mercilessly raped. She is then dumped by the railway tracks. What’s more, even the car is abandoned and a report filed about it being stolen.
The rape scene is perhaps the most brutal I have ever seen in a Hindi film. And chills you to the bone minus any titillation. The police home in on the culprits with record speed, but the victim, temporarily compromised in vision and deeply traumatized psychologically, is simply unable to confirm their identities.
Add a ruthless defense lawyer (Satyajit Sharma), a judge (Revathy) helpless in front of the law’s technicalities, and a resolute but equally defenseless and harangued advocate, Raavi (Taapsee Pannu), and you see a scathing aftermath of what a victim and her family—a loving and steadfast yet equally vulnerable husband, Vinay (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and an innocent child (Advik Jaiswal)—have to go through when things couldn’t possibly get worse.
Had director and co-writer Anubhav Sinha (who has given us worthy films like one of our pioneering espionage dramas, Dus, the riveting Mulk and the hard-hitting Thappad) concentrated on this core story, Assi could have been a quasi-masterpiece. The dialogues and many a sequence (like between Parima and her son, or the sequence in bed with her husband) are milestone depictions of such a victim’s utter desperation and helplessness. The judge’s dilemmas on her rulings, especially in the matter of sustaining or overruling objections by the lawyers, and the matters of the medical reports and the identity parade, all point to a monumental intention from the filmmaker along with the tellingly-moving sequence of how Parima is treated by her school principal by the latter revealing a truly shocking consequence of the inhuman ordeal she has gone through.
But Sinha and co-writer Gaurav Solanki do not stop here. In their bid to milk the rape issues and its social implications to the last drop, the story takes on needless and often absurd turns. A vigilante (Kumud Mishra) angle comes in to distract the subject, believe it or not. Schoolchildren are brought into the court in a sequence that should not have been conceived at all, let alone be executed. How can young kids be dragged into a court where rape is the issue??
Finally, another extraneous factor is when a rapist’s father extracts vendetta on the vigilante. And yes, before I forget, while the husband’s stoic support is very real and admirable, but a powerful actor like Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub is made to behave and look supremely indifferent in view of what his wife and he have gone through.
There is also a red slide on screen every 20 minutes, a statistical pointer that within that period, a rape has happened somewhere in India. Yes, the intention is noble, but instead of distracting the flow, like ads sprouting amidst a key scene in a web series, could not a prominent on-scene text have done the job?
And last but not the least, the conclusion is half-baked at best, shorn of the audience gratification that should have been a compulsion after such intense, even if muddled, look at such a heinous act.
In his last few outings (Bheed, Afwaah, Anek), Sinha has gone haywire in his basic concepts themselves, disastrously attempting to show that he is “above” the perceptive population of India. In Article 15, his underwhelming climax, but the songs fail to leave any impress.
Time and again, I have noticed and often commented on the fact that many such misguided movies are buttressed by at least one great performance. This time, there are two: Kani Kusruti is phenomenal in every scene as Parima. Advik Jaiswal deserves a Best Child Actor trophy for his sheer wide-eyed innocence and pitch-perfect understanding of his character (at his age!), Taapsee Pannu is good when she could have been far better, and her climactic breakdown fails to show any freshness: she was much better in Sinha’s Mulk in the courtroom— and outside it!
As Raavi’s friend, Kartik, Kumud Mishra gets one of his weakest characters ever, and this consistently formidable talent is thus ho-hum. Jatin Goswami as the cop scores, as does Manoj Pahwa as the rapist’s father. Revathy, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, and the boys playing the rapists are alright, Ayyub scoring when he is not showing an apathetic look! Supriya Pathak, Naseeruddin Shah and Seema Pahwa just go through the motions in cameos.
Here is a film that in every way, could have been a milestone. Thankfully, it is not a millstone in the genre, but sadly, it hangs in-between somewhere.
Rating: **1/2
T-Series Films’ & Benaras Media Works’ Assi Produced by: Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar & Anubhav Sinha Directed by: Anubhav Sinha Written by: Anubhav Sinha & Gaurav Solanki Music: Rochak Kohli & Swanand Kirkire Starring: Taapsee Pannu, Kani Kusruti, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra, Revathy, Advik Jaiswal, Jatin Goswami, Manoj Pahwa, Satyajit Sharma. Vipul Gupta, Sahil Sethi, Abhishek Kaushal, Tejender Singh, Abhishant Rana, Sp. App: Seema Pahwa, Supriya Pathak & Naseeruddin Shah
