Unlike many Bollywood movies, Vadh (2002) picks a genre
and sticks with it. It is a psychological thriller. There’s no
painfully extended “comic” subplot, no saintly old women miraculously
regain their eyesight after being reunited with their long lost sons,
and there’s all of five minutes of romance in the entire movie. (Songs
are, as always, the exception.)
Psychiatrist Arjun Singh (Nana Patenkar) is called away from his pregnant wife Jyoti (Anupama Varma) in order to treat a dangerous lunatic (Raju Mavani) at the local prison. After giving the man an injection, Arjun returns home. Hours later, however, the lunatic escapes, and later that night, the first dead body turns up, with her throat slashed and an “X” carved into her face..
The police are quite happy to accept the “insane serial killer” explanation, but Inspector Vijay Singh (Nakul), Arjun’s younger brother, isn’t so sure. The victim was a married woman who had been having an affair with Aryan (Puru Rajkumar), Arjun’s sleazy best friend. Aryan has no alibi, and Vijay is immediately convinced that he’s the killer.
(As an aside, I found the Arju/Aryan friendship a bit of a stretch. Arjun is a very strict, very traditional Rajput man, while Aryan is a self-centered jerk who habitually sleeps with married women and wears bad pants. Arjun says that they’ve been friends since childhood, but never explains why. On the other hand, we never really see the friendship in action, since Arjun and Aryan are rarely on screen together. Aryan may have hidden depths.)
When he’s not making logical leaps or ending hostage situations by ordering police snipers to shoot him in the head and then ducking, Vijayn is bantering with spunky reporter Deepa (Meghna Kothari, who played Maya in Bride and Prejudice. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do the Cobra Dance here.) Deepa is interested in a deeper relationship, while Vijay is clueless, so she goes to his apartment and dances at him until he gets the point. The next morning Vijay rushes to consult his brother, while Deepa rushes to consult her father, and the marriage is promptly fixed.
At the wedding, Aryan gets into a very public argument with another of his conquests, and leaves while muttering dire threats. The next day, he calls the police and tells them that he has discovered the woman’s dead body. Vijay promptly takes him into custody, and Arjun just as promptly bails him out.
After a shopping trip, Arjun and Jyoti return home to find that someone has drawn the killer’s trademark “X” over their faces in the family portrait. The killer is clearly now targeting them.
Vadh plays fair with its plot twists. There are a few obvious guns on the mantelpiece, and they are all fired by the end of the movie. Similarly, while the big revelation at the end of the film isn’t obvious, it makes perfect sense given what we have seen before.
It’s not a perfect thriller, though. Aryan is basically a cipher, and rarely onscreen, so it’s hard to take him seriously as a suspect. For that matter, anyone familiar with the Murder, She Wrote rule will be able to identify the real killer in short order. And while the killer is shown to be very careful, wearing gloves and wiping fingerprints, the police in Vadh never check for fingerprints anyway. This does not make the killer look smart, it makes the police look dumb.
The real reason to watch Vadh, though, is Nana Patekar. His Arjun is a very nuanced and fascinating character, and he does not chew the scenery despite numerous opportunities to do so. It’s a solid film with one great performance.
Psychiatrist Arjun Singh (Nana Patenkar) is called away from his pregnant wife Jyoti (Anupama Varma) in order to treat a dangerous lunatic (Raju Mavani) at the local prison. After giving the man an injection, Arjun returns home. Hours later, however, the lunatic escapes, and later that night, the first dead body turns up, with her throat slashed and an “X” carved into her face..
The police are quite happy to accept the “insane serial killer” explanation, but Inspector Vijay Singh (Nakul), Arjun’s younger brother, isn’t so sure. The victim was a married woman who had been having an affair with Aryan (Puru Rajkumar), Arjun’s sleazy best friend. Aryan has no alibi, and Vijay is immediately convinced that he’s the killer.
(As an aside, I found the Arju/Aryan friendship a bit of a stretch. Arjun is a very strict, very traditional Rajput man, while Aryan is a self-centered jerk who habitually sleeps with married women and wears bad pants. Arjun says that they’ve been friends since childhood, but never explains why. On the other hand, we never really see the friendship in action, since Arjun and Aryan are rarely on screen together. Aryan may have hidden depths.)
When he’s not making logical leaps or ending hostage situations by ordering police snipers to shoot him in the head and then ducking, Vijayn is bantering with spunky reporter Deepa (Meghna Kothari, who played Maya in Bride and Prejudice. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do the Cobra Dance here.) Deepa is interested in a deeper relationship, while Vijay is clueless, so she goes to his apartment and dances at him until he gets the point. The next morning Vijay rushes to consult his brother, while Deepa rushes to consult her father, and the marriage is promptly fixed.
At the wedding, Aryan gets into a very public argument with another of his conquests, and leaves while muttering dire threats. The next day, he calls the police and tells them that he has discovered the woman’s dead body. Vijay promptly takes him into custody, and Arjun just as promptly bails him out.
After a shopping trip, Arjun and Jyoti return home to find that someone has drawn the killer’s trademark “X” over their faces in the family portrait. The killer is clearly now targeting them.
Vadh plays fair with its plot twists. There are a few obvious guns on the mantelpiece, and they are all fired by the end of the movie. Similarly, while the big revelation at the end of the film isn’t obvious, it makes perfect sense given what we have seen before.
It’s not a perfect thriller, though. Aryan is basically a cipher, and rarely onscreen, so it’s hard to take him seriously as a suspect. For that matter, anyone familiar with the Murder, She Wrote rule will be able to identify the real killer in short order. And while the killer is shown to be very careful, wearing gloves and wiping fingerprints, the police in Vadh never check for fingerprints anyway. This does not make the killer look smart, it makes the police look dumb.
The real reason to watch Vadh, though, is Nana Patekar. His Arjun is a very nuanced and fascinating character, and he does not chew the scenery despite numerous opportunities to do so. It’s a solid film with one great performance.
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