Azadi in Malayalam directed by debutant Jo George, attempts to create a paradigm of suspense within the confines of a hospital where a pregnant prisoner Ganga (Raveena Ravi) is confined for her child birth.
The film is about how her husband gets her out into freedom (azaadi, get it?). However, there are way too many twists and turns, none of them too convincing or even plausible, to give the narrative the flashy fillip it aspires to.
Much of this pyramid of mounting tension seems unnecessarily twisty. The only thing that appealed to me was the husband Raghu (Sreenath Bhasi)’s mulish determination to get his wife out of the hospital and her prison term.
The character is not shown as a superman ploughing his way through formidable gauntlet of goons and cops. Raghu gets routinely thrashed to the ground. But he gets up and just keeps up coming back to get his wife. There is a job to be done at any cost. The obstacles are to be treated as disposable and deletable.
The action looks convincing, The characters are strong but vulnerable. Lal is specially powerful as the incarcerated girl’s father. Like her husband Raghu , the father Kaappa goes to audacious lengths to get her out of her confinement.
Regrettably, though the film is all about azaadi, there is nothing liberating about the screenplay which favours an aggressive standpoint even if its means sacrificing all subtlety. The twist at the end ruins all the impact of the rescue operation that we were being fed to applaud.
Azadi is a weak attempt at portraying strong characters determined to do justice to a woman scorned. Sadly the film fails to give the mute Ganga the voice that she deserves.
