Movie Review: Chakravyuh

Prakash Jha is a gifted film-maker, occupying an interesting slot: the causes n' concern, issue-based, (political) conflicts of interest – areas that no one else addresses. Right from Damul (1984), his single-minded focus on caste, reservation and similar (un-glamorous but very real) issues shows up in his frame with varying degrees of success.His latest, Chakravyuh, goes into deja vu territory, this time closing in on the Maosist insurgency with a hard close-up on what makes a normal educated, young man do a volte face and hit the path of violence. While Jha's interest, knowledge and grasp of Bihar/Jharkhand's political landscape is indisputable as also his desire and ability to fascinatingly fictionalise facts, he tends to (often) be over-simplistic. Here, riding on the Becket theme, we have two friends who part ways driven by different ideologies. The complexities that follow, along with the realistic blood n' gore action, do little to embellish the movie with requisite drama, conflict, intensity and resolve, not to mention the cumbersome kitty of stereotypes – with Esha Gupta shockingly miscast as the cop's wife, and a Sameera Reddy item number. The script also disappoints (for devoted Jha-watchers) with predictable lines being hurled by all key players. Manoj, Om, Arjun and Abhay do their best but cannot cope with a movie that appears to be more about posturing about a great idea gone wrong somewhere...Jha however scores big brownie points for having the courage to confront toilet humour, mindless violence and vacuous romantic dalliances of designer-led youngistan. For whatever it is worth, the film tries to honestly demonstrate a thinking man’s conscience in action against ground realities of the uncomfortable kind that needs to be brought to the public domain.