Badlapur seems like a cliche revenge story, but when you actually sit through it is when you know it has a lot more to it. One would not be surprised if we think that Sriram Raghavan played it safe with Badlapur, but we can't blame him, as we all know what a dud his last directorial (Agent Vinod) proved to be. Badlapur showcases the dark side of a person who is seeking revenge. But does that give him a purpose to live? Or pushes him into the obscurest side of humanity?

Raghav a.k.a Raghu is a man with a past. He witnessed his wife and son being killed during a robbery. 15 years later, Raghu finds out who pulled the trigger to kill his family. Badlapur is a saga of his revenge.

Varun Dhavan, who breaks out of his chocolate boy image with Badlapur, has definitely been successful with that. Nonetheless he still has a long way to go to master the art of playing a character with menace and aggression. His effort is noteworthy and shows up on screen. He is able to carry the expressions well, but it doesn't look effortless, even forced in certain areas and not present at all in some others. But to take such a risk in just four films, to move out of his comfort zone, Varun surely deserves to be applauded for this. His best performance in the movie is portions with Yami Gautam and also where his characterization changes, from good to evil.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui a man whose talent is simply excellence. To some extent you could say that the movie rests on his shoulders, solely. If a person can bile menace in his anger, humor, innocence, and in every little thing he does, he is one hell lot of an actor, who knows his skill quite well. What a performance! He is simply brilliant, in every single frame of the movie. He adds the slight humor element of the movie too.

Huma Qureshi plays the role of a prostitute in the film and has done her small role, with a lot of subtlety and effortlessness. Vinay Pathak, Radhika Apte, Divya Dutta, etc. have pivotal characters to play and all of them have done complete justice to their roles. Yami Gautam is wasted in the film and is seen in hardly any portions of the film.

The background score of the move is awesome and has an underlying thrill to it which helps create the mood of the film. The songs that have been making it to the chart-buster lists, come in as fillers all throughout the movie. The first half of the film is well paced and helps to build an emotional connect with the main protagonist. But the latter half tends to derail as the plot becomes very predictable. Thus making it stretch unnecessarily.

All in all the movie is watch for all those of you who have an eye for good performance and a decent story line. Even though the second half tends to become slow and predictable, overall the movie is good cinema. So this week weekend do get a ticket to Badlapur and as the caption of the movie goes, 'Don't miss the beginning".

Anita Menon