Nikkhil Advani’ s Vedaa is arguably his best work to date. It is hard-edged and steely, what with John Abraham playing a rustic mumbling Rambo on a revenge trail that leaves many maimed and killed.
By the end of this breathless romp into the ruins, which ends in the plundered corridors of a courthouse(order order indeed!) , we are left with a feeling of rage.
Vedaa will leave you angry at the end, angry that such injustice still prevails in our land. That Dalits are disallowed their basic rights by kangaroo courts run by a mofussil mafia. In the film, Abhishek Banerjee and his screen uncle Ashish Vidyarthi strut around as a law unto themselves. Those who fail to comply are given a “suitable” punishment.
All this may seem like outdated theatrics to those who live far away from rural (read: real) India. But the heartland still beats to the rhythm of brutal injustice.
Nikkhil Advani and his writer Aseem Arora, comb the carnage with convincing impunity. A lot of the action is in the Stallone space: stealthy moves, slit throats, the works. This, I feel, is a deliberate subversion of genres where inequality meets its ‘maths’.
It’s like a heady and largely steady mix of Article 15 and Rambo, bringing to the table an upheaval that is larger than life and yet stable.
A lot of the film’s muted sublinear life comes from John Abraham who, true to his image, seldom speaks. John has made a career of letting his fists do all the talking. And when a gun is placed in the fist, the feast of fury that follows is devastating.This is a road well taken by John.
Director Nikkhil Advani gives his leading man the role of a lifetime. Unlike, say, Satyamev Jayate in which the set-up was conspicuously self-serving, Vedaa exudes the scent of a deep hurt.
Sharvari in the title role becomes emblematic of centuries of wounded pride and barbaric suppression. There is a finely written sequence where a man who has dared to fall in love with a woman from a higher caste, is humiliated in public view.
The violence in moments such as this is more emotional than physical. Advani shows us how noiselessly the whip is wielded by the powerful. The bond that brews enticingly between the simmering mentor and his restless protegee, remains unexplored: there are too many burning bridges to cross, too much blood to walk over for a sustained relationship to grow between the oppressed ingenue and her enraged mentor.
Still, John Abraham and Sharvari, without trying , will remind you of Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. When they are not on the run (which is very rare) they are circling each wondering what lies beneath .
In a film that is underlined by gravitas, I wish Advani had avoided that awful item song by Mouni Roy. As she sings and swings about her lover being unable to make her happy with a leery troop at her tail, you realize why a society built on inequality can never change. Even those trying to make that change happen cannot help objectifying women.
