Raid, an apt political thriller for our times

In these times of rampant ‘CBI and ED raids’, comes a film on income tax raids in the eighties, claiming to be based on ‘real life’ events - Raid. The director, Rajkumar Gupta, has a reputation of making realistic films- right from his debut film Aamir, No One Killed Jessica to now Raid, Gupta has managed to maintain the ‘realism’ quotient in his films.

A remarkable thing about his characterisation is that he keeps his characters in undertones, but they make strong statements. Such kind of characters leave an imprint on your mind. After all, in real life, we have such characters and not the melodramatic larger-than-life heroes doing all superhuman things.

Rajkumar Gupta carries this quality of his with élan in Raid too. The protagonist, Amay Patnaik, (Ajay Devgn) is an honest income tax officer who is constantly transferred because of his uncompromising stand on corruption. He gets transferred to Lucknow, where ‘Tauji’ (Saurabh Shukla) lives with his large family and unquestioned political influence. The honest officer now takes up the responsibility of raiding his house to recover large amount of money illegally hoarded within his house.

His source of information is someone from within the family. But no one knows where this money is hidden. Tauji’s family includes his arrogant brothers, bhabhijis, plenty of intimidating goons and his old mother, who is the most interesting of all, as she spices up the otherwise mundane process of income tax raids.

Then starts a series of Tauji’s political muscle-flexing and Officer Patnaik’s unflinching pursuit of the raid and the film covers it all; Tauji trying hard and even reaching Delhi to stop the raid and the honest officer not giving in to any kind of pressure, even when Tauji’s followers attack the officer and his colleagues.

The film is a thriller, but at times, specially at the time when one expects something shocking, it slackens. Ajay Devgn, as a brooding, intense and unwavering IT official impresses but, at times, bores too. Even the impressive Saurabh Shukla as Tauji, at times, seems to lose the gravitas of a villain.

Though the film, without making it obvious, draws an unmistakable parallel between the times of the eighties and the present; Munshi Prem Chand’s story ‘Namak Ka Daroga’ is referred to, the corrupt politician funding the party during the time of elections and hence pressuring the chief minister is highlighted, other economic offences such as black money, money laundering and Hawala rackets are also mentioned, which are so relevant in today’s economic-political discussion.

The movie’s dialogues are power-packed and are sure to impress audiences. The background score is also impressive, except the unnecessary Punjabi song in the backdrop of old Lucknow and the flavour of romance between Ajay and Ileana De Cruz seems out-of-place. The film could actually do without the thin streak of romance which rather slows it down.

The film about a raid in the eighties has come in the times when the terms like corruption, patriotism, honesty and even black money are being reinvented in contemporary political scenario. Are the audiences even willing to digest this dose of honesty and patriotism even if it comes in an attractive package - is the question.