Netflix India has garnered a reputation for churning out one after another boring series and films, I am sure that their recent original film, Class Of ’83 can firmly get a place in the walk of shame. And with this being the of the third collaboration of Netflix with Red Chilies Entertainment after Bard of Blood and Betaal, should lead them to introspect on the quality of their output. Or may be there is an aim to get the audience to unsubscribe from Netflix, if that is the aim they are on their path.
Given the debate around nepotism, let me say this, Bobby Deol is a miscast from the word go, but then that is the benefit of being born in a star family with no talent. Every two years you can come with a sob story of addiction and how you are looking forward to this next movie etc. Bobby cannot act and it would be great if he realises this and spares us.
Now coming back to the film, which is loosely based on the renowned crime reporter S.Hussain Zaidi’s book Class of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police. Full credit to Abhijit Deshpande for taking an interesting concept from a riveting book and converting it into one of the most boring screenplays ever. Not many can claim credit to something like this.
I wonder why Bollywood is still afraid to name the criminals and mobs in their films, when they are based on actual indivisuals. While the Hindu gangleader Naik is named, the Muslim mobster names have been changed, don’t know if it is to protect or pacify someone.
The build up for the main lead takes quite some time, but then the director forgets the fact that Bobby was never a superstar. Say in case of a Hum the build up works for Amitabh Bachchan because he was a bonafide superstar. The problem is not even consistent with the tone of the film which is muted and not over the top. It does not help that Bobby is wooden, which the director confuses to be a brooding look.
Like many upteen films before this, we get the tragic hero’s back story which is not even new or milked for its worth. In the same genre, I can say that Shimit Amin’s Ab Tak Chappan is way better, we feel the anguish when Nana Patekar’s wife died, but here it is not the case.
The relationship between the mentor and a rookie cop is perfect foil for action film set up, but then here it laundered away with zero chemistry between Bobby and the rookie. Even his own elder brother Sunny’s film Indian had much better character build up with cops and self-vigilante.guys.
Here we get stock characters, behold one loyal Muslim cop whose only job in the movie is to die, which he does.
We get a stock character of a mill worker’s son who is a cop and we find name dropping like Datta Samant but all of these are ornamental, the director is not interested in any of this.
Like the countless Instagram feeds which uses #Foodporn and bores us with their food photos, in between this film does the same and it has nothing to do with the characters at all.
As this is a Netflix original film, how can this not be edgy? Thus we get a cop masturbating and what is supposed to follow in next scene is supposed to be funny, it might be so for a five year old kid.
The film does not even dwell on the killings, it is as if these cops are trigger happy and don’t even have an iota of humanity.
I would suggest that one should go watch/re-watch Ab Tak Chappan or Atul Sabharwal’s own series Powder which is available on NetFlix and Sony Liv.
This is a wasted opportunity, the best thing is its duration, you can take a power nap and feel refreshed and not worry about your data.
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