Vivek Agnihotri's The Tashkent Files begins with a dedication to "all honest journalists of India, and thus begins, quite early on, the filmmaker's not-so-discreet jibes at all the institutions and ideologies, he believes, have wrecked the nation. Through his characters, he classifies them NGOs are "social terrorists, Supreme Court judges are "judicial terrorists, writers and historians are "intellectual terrorists and the media, of course, is "TRP terrorists. The ones who are not a terrorist, it appears, is Lal Bahadur Shastri, around whose death the film is centred, and the ones who fought against Indira Gandhi's Emergency. India, he insists, became a colony again ten years after Shastri died.
It's quite apparent that Agnihotri is presenting an ideological slide show using Shastri's death as a conduit. How did the second Prime Minister of India die? That's a question that could very well make for a captivating thriller with its many conspiracy theories but the filmmaker uses this opportunity to take down left, secular and socialist ideologies and institutions, in a fashion that is unintentionally comical. It's quite amusing how the film appropriates terms like "anti-national, "presstitutes and "fake news, which have famously been the armour of the current regime and its followers. Then there are some facile and tokenistic "balanced arguments, or "war of narratives as a historian character, Aiysha (Pallavi Joshi) puts it, which are bound to throw off right-wing ideologues completely. Not to mention the casting of the vocal critic of the current regime, Naseeruddin Shah (albeit to play a malicious minister).
The Tashkent Files' agenda comes clear only in its climax, although it's a no-brainer, as the film keeps referring to the Emergency in as many ways as possible. The filmmaker wishes to be subtle by not taking names (for the most part) and even censoring them in "official documents but clearly subtlety is not Agnihotri's forte. The characters -- who are part of a 12 Angry Men (1957)-style committee formed to debate and investigate Shastri's mysterious death -- are shrill and loud. Joshi's character, Aiysha, is the most interesting of the lot, as she embodies the archetype of an "armchair intellectual (she is literally in a wheelchair) and her only motive apparently is to maintain her top position on the bestseller list. She mouths eloquent dialogues like "Main historian hoon mujhe bohut saari batein pata hai (I am a historian, I know a lot) as a well thought out rebuttal. Agnihotri's disdain for a person like that is evident as is his distrust in NGO head, Indira Joseph Roy (Mandira Bedi), who screams lines like "No! That is misogynistic and "Capitalism will kill you with burgers (to an auditorium full of critics who have just been served the same). She also randomly explains Russian words like dacha (bungalow) during closed room discussions. Pankaj Tripathi's character, a scientist, only makes a significant contribution when he stokes communal discourse against Muslims. He is soon shut down, thankfully. A young journalist, Raagini Phule (Shweta Basu Prasad), who was gifted the scoop of Tashkent Files by a Deep Throat, is shown as the only voice of reason. She is driven by sach (truth) to such an extent that when strangled in Tashkent and asked who does she work for, her response is, wait for it -- sach.
To Agnihotri's credit, he has picked a subject that is engaging, and he has done his research when it comes to bringing out a cornucopia of conspiracies but onscreen, they become a hotchpotch of hearsay, juvenile arguments, eye rolls and a background track which says, "Sab chalta hai. Releasing during election time, if one were concerned about the film being propaganda, you need not worry too much. With no conviction and utter confusion, the film is evidently more drama than reality. But the concern here is one of possibility: what if this was a potent, well-crafted propaganda film that released a day after India went to polls, slipping under the Election Commission radar?
The Tashkent Files Movie Review Rating: 2.5/5 Stars (Two and a half stars)
Star Cast: Shweta Basu Prasad, Mithun Chakraborty, Pankaj Tripathi, Pallavi Joshi, Mandira Bedi
Director: Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri
The Tashkent Files Movie Review By A Political Illiterate But A Movie Buff!NOTE: Before moving forward to the main review, please note, I'm a political illiterate and have a pretty little Google knowledge about Lal Bahadur Shastri's case. So, I'll just talk about how the movie is without pointing out the factual' errors in the film.
What's Good: The in-room sequences and the debates holds your attention but it's not for the majority of the time, there comes the What's Bad' section read below
What's Bad: Poor editing and the protagonist's character has way too many flaws and the credit goes to mediocre writing
Loo Break: The movie is 144 minutes long and there comes a time when you're forced to take one
Watch or Not?: Watch it only if you have any idea about the case and you are a sucker for political dramas because whatever information the makers feed you, could be too much to sink on
User Rating:
It starts with a political journalist Raagini (Shweta Basu Prasad) getting slammed by her boss for not finding a worthy scoop. Very conveniently, in the next scene, she gets a call from an unknown who offers her a life-changing' scoop as a birthday gift. Raagini, who by now, has already been accused by her boss for posting fake news in order to garner more social media attention, starts researching about that scoop. The caller asks her to expose the apparent most mysterious death of the Indian history, of Lal Bahadur Shastri.
She goes home open her laptop which has a Search' engine instead of Google, does the research and gets it printed. This spreads and politicians get in the radar of public asking questions. This led to a high profile investigation committee called political leader Shyam Sundar Tripathi (Mithun Chakraborty). Along with few publicly prominent figures, Raagini, too, gets to be a part of that committee. With the war of narratives' going in that room, everyone has a different agenda/theory regarding the case and they scream a lot.
The Tashkent Files Movie Review By A Political Illiterate But A Movie Buff!The film, definitely, is well-researched; now is it all the Google stuff? Or there were some real efforts in accumulating all this information I'll leave that on those who will watch the film, please let me know. The courtroom scenes are intriguing (without any agenda, I was totally into some scenes) and thankfully there's a little bit of comic relief in between (was it unintentional? Don't know, but it was there).
The screenplay of the movie is extremely poor! The outdoor shots are taken hand-held and that just disturbs you while watching them. The indoor scenes are shot properly but because of the setup, it gives you a high 12 Angry Men hangover. The one thing that's understandable is, the director chose 10 people to amass different theories about the case and then criticize them all to end it with the one he wanted.
Shweta Basu Prasad, time and again, has proved she's a fine performer. She still hasn't reached her peak yet because of her still awaited due. She is good as this journalist on the quest of digging up proofs to solve a mystery, but the problem is it's very uni-dimensional. Mithun Chakraborty hams... a lot, yes his character demanded the same but after a point of time, it just gets annoying.
Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri's direction is very disjointed, it's all over the place. Unwanted slo-mo sequences, uncalled-for drama create chaos. For a political illiterate like me, the information at times gets too much to consume. There are some scenes in which the zooming was very abruptly used making it look very amateurish.
All said and done, The Tashkent Files consumes too much of information, how much of that is true? It intrigues you at places but it drags too. It's a shoddily directed, relying on a few good performances and a poorly edited film.
Two and a half stars!
The Tashkent Files releases on 12th April 2019.
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Hellboy was the best of the new releases though it collected poorly. The collections of the film were 75 lakhs nett which was less than the holdover Hollywood release Shazam but still more than all the new Hindi releases. Hellboy will hardly survive at the box office with these sort of collections.
The Tashkent Files was the best of the Hindi releases with collections of 35 lakhs nett. If the collections of Hellboy were more than all the new Hindi releases combined then the collections of The Tashkent files were more than all the other new Hindi releases combined.
Films like Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai, Blackboard v Whiteboard, Ek Haqiqat Ganga, Gun Pe Done, Paharganj also released and it was the last named which had some 8-10 lakh nett collections while the others completely failed to register.
This meant that the order of the top five Hindi films this week was as follows.
1. Romeo Akbar Walter (2nd week)
2. Kesari (4th week)
3. The Tashkent Files (1st week)
4. Badla (6th week)
5. Paharganj (1st week).
https://boxofficeindia.com/report-details.php?articleid=4916
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