Raid

The middle of the eighties, Lucknow. Amay Patnaik is an inspector in the tax department. He is transferred often; he gets on with nobody because he does not step outside the rules. One day an anonymous tip comes in: there is undeclared money in the house of the most powerful man in the city. The man is also a member of parliament and nobody in the region touches him. Amay enters the house with his team. The search begins and runs for hours; the walls, the ceiling, the courtyard, the garden. The owner waits calmly; he makes calls, brings his political connections into play, and a crowd gathers outside. Raj Kumar Gupta directs. Ajay Devgn plays Amay and Saurabh Shukla the owner. The narrative rests on a real tax raid; the production states this and the details were changed. Its best side is the setting; the narrative takes place almost entirely in one house and the tension comes from the search itself. The character played by Saurabh Shukla never raises his voice and builds his threat through politeness; it is the film's most striking performance. The matter the narrative builds is bureaucracy working; the hero operates with paperwork rather than a gun. The period reconstruction is limited but built through detail in telephones, vehicles and clothes. Its limit is the script; the crowd scenes run long in the second half and the ending slides into an emotional register. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian thrillers based on real events and single setting narratives. Who it is not for: the characters are one dimensional, the woman's part has no function, and the ending is formulaic.