What Is The Story About?
ZEE5 original film ‘India Lockdown’ is set in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown in the country. The narrative of India Lockdown attempts to revisit the harsh reality of those days through parallel-running stories of four sets of people – a young college-going couple, with a commercial pilot (Ahana Kumra) being the third cog in their story; a middle-aged grandfather-to-be (Prakash Belawadi); a migrant daily-wage-earning couple (Prateik Babbar & Sai Tamhankar); and a sex worker (Shweta Basu Prasad).
India Lockdown is written and directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. It is produced by PEN Films.
Performances?
None of the performances in India Lockdown deserves special mention – all are average at best. Prakash Belawadi’s is the only one that is convincing. Shweta Basu Prasad goes overboard in her depiction of a badass sex worker. Prateik Babbar is utterly unconvincing in the role of a desperate migrant. He gets the body language right. It’s his delivery of dialogue that disappoints. Ahana Kumra is wasted in a nonsensical role.
Analysis?
As the world at large, and India in particular, looks to move past the challenging Covid-19 pandemic, into a more optimistic and hopeful future, India Lockdown seems like a travesty of sorts. The lockdown is a thing of the past, the pain of which no one wants to remember or revisit anymore. It is a done and dusted topic, not to say, done to death by a gazillion similar content pieces in every form. To put it bluntly, as we stand at the threshold of 2023, India Lockdown is a film that is two years too late in the coming.
That said, India Lockdown is also a film that trivialises the grave issues of the early days of the lockdown, by focusing on inane banalities. A young college-going couple, keen to lose their virginity to each other, cannot do so because of the lockdown. The boy, quite obviously in his late teens, is hit upon by a much older woman, used to flying high – she’s a commercial pilot. Sexual predators aren’t just older men, it seems. Moon, the commercial pilot, openly flirts with the college kid, talks dirty with him, and comes very close to seducing him. The entire story seems sordid and sleazy. More importantly, it finds place in a narrative that claims to shed light on the horrors of the lockdown; like, seriously?
The story of the migrant workers walking back to their hometown resorts to sexual innuendo and attempted sexual abuse to put its point across, quite an asinine way of looking at the issue. The overwhelming hunger, fatigue and other tribulations do find a place in the story, but more like the mandatory honorable mention. The rest of it centres on men casting predatory looks at the wife, calling her ‘maal’, seeking sexual favours and what not.
A few sequences do hit hard – like the influential man using an ambulance (the only vehicles allowed on the roads at the beginning of the strict lockdown) to satisfy his lust with the sex worker. The rest of it is just too banal and inconsequential to waste time or effort in writing more about it.
All said and done, India Lockdown is a woeful waste of resources – time, money, effort and celluloid. It is a film that is best avoided – why waste precious time watching it when there’s tons of other great stuff to watch
.Music And Other Departments?
The music of India Lockdown is passable – nothing to write home about. The cinematography, by Palash Das and Keiko Nakahara, is average. Deven Murdeshwar’s editing passes muster, but just about.
Highlights?
None
Drawbacks?
Poor writing
Inane dialogues
Over the top performances
Did I like it?
No
Do I recommend it?
No
India Lockdown Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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