NH10: Review

By: Sameera Mehta

Directed by Navdeep Singh, starring Anushka Sharma and Neil
Bhoopalam in titular roles, debuting Anushka (and her brothers)
production house Clean Slate Films as well as being co-produced
by the now voguish Phantom Films (Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya
Motwane, Madhu Mantena, Vikas Bahl), NH10 presents a well-knit
plot that refuses to be pigeonholed as a mere thriller, survival film,
revenge drama or road movie. It is one and all at different points in
the narrative. Over the last few years, Indian audiences have been
repeatedly force-fed the same brainless masala fare packaged with
a different Khan at the helm. This hashing and rehashing has left our
palettes numb and established a worrying normative of the
depressing 100-crore club, usually celebrating quantity at the cost
of quality. In such a scenario, films that dont ascribe to the
aforementioned formula, and give precedence to, God-forbid, an
actual storyline, deserve to be highlighted and merit a small whoop
in the face of an avalanche of outright stupidity that has come to
dominate Bollywoods idea of mainstream.
Though the (Bollywood) movie year has just begun and exciting
films are slated for release in the coming months (Detective
Byomkesh Bakshy, Wazir, Bajirao Mastani, Dil Dhadakne Do), NH10
will surely carve a niche for itself in the cinegoers imagination. A
well thought-out script, accompanied by powerful performances
from all actors, sprinkled with the right amount of suspense, drama
and violence, the movie never loses the viewers attention. My
personal grouse with the last revenge thriller to hit screens,
Badlapur, boasting excellent acting performances, was that the
premise at the center of all that violence, namely, a personal
vendetta to avenge familial loss, was never developed beyond the
first half hour, and the movie consequently moved in dizzying circles
of nothingness. I possess a limited patience for Varun Dhawans
attempts at mourning his wife and child by murdering and raping
people. NH10s highway and desolate wilderness grips the viewer
where the train to Badlapur derails midway. The first half of the
movie is a tale of survival, necessitated by an initial act of moral
responsibility (or downright stupidity, depending on where you
choose to place yourself), while the second half grants decisive
agency to the female protagonist and allows the revenge genre to
lengthen its shadow as the power-play between hunter and hunted
is suddenly reversed.
The tension is not allowed to ease for even a moment and the credit
for that goes to the tight editing treatment that this movie has
received. There were ample opportunities to pander and titillate
through an item number but if reports are to be believed, the

protagonist and producer of this film, Anushka Sharma, put her foot
down, and the viewer ought to celebrate this creative decision.
There is no song or background music to lend theatricality or detract
from the situation that traps the characters. It is only at the end,
when the jo karna thha who karna thha strain of action ceases,
that a song pervades the narrative. The insertion works both
formally, to indicate the conclusion of the movie experience but also
coincides seamlessly with the POV of the protagonist, as waves of
relief wash over the senses. The direction involved in certain scenes
is laudable and deserves special mention: Meeras (Anushka
Sharma) taut encounter with a grievously injured Satbir (Darshan
Kumar), where, rather than adopting the usual route of a
melodramatic face off (and unusually long soliloquies) between the
two, Meera sits calmly, lights and enjoys a smoke, while he
struggles to stand up. No words are wasted in spoon-feeding
character motivations to the audience.
The narrative employs motifs that resonate at specific moments in
the film, weaving a cohesive framework and making evident the
planning that has gone into the screenplay. The play on the
multifaceted notion of revenge is launched by the gruesome one of
honor killing, an act that is justified as avenging the besmirching of
family honor. Following this is the egotistical revenge that Arjun (Neil
Bhoopalam) insists on initiating after being slapped by Satbir for
interfering in a family matter and the subsequent acts of violence
carry over the relay of revenge. An iron rod, the chosen weapon of
violence in these acts of vengeance, brings forth uncomfortable
memories of recent gender violence, and unwitting poetic justice is
served when the weapon is turned on those who wield it to establish
their mardaangi. A horrifying dialogue in the movie about killing
someone with an iron rod (yeh le aur karde chhed isme) as
bearing testimony to the wielders masculine prowess hovers
tauntingly over Meeras picking up of the rod. But Meera is no Rani
Jhansi or Rani Mukherji, who will assume a masculine demeanor to
become Mardaani (the only way a woman becomes laudable, Mr.
Pradeep Sarkar?), but she is courageous and quick-witted in her own
female self.
The film subtly establishes a feminist subtext throughout the movie,
beginning with the instance when a male coworker insinuates that
Meeras presentation being highly praised stems from the undue
privilege awarded to women in the workplace by male superiors,
and is immediately cut down to size by her snarky comeback.
Similarly, when stopping at a dhaba during the journey, Meera
notices the word randi scrawled on the door of the bathroom, and
wets a tissue to determinedly erase the offensive word from the
spot. This incident is powerfully replayed when, later in the movie,
she reaches the spot under the bridge to discover Arjuns body and
the words Raand Saali scrawled on the wall with his blood. This is
the moment of peripeteia, the point when she re-dons the yellow

jacket (reportedly inspired from Uma Thurmans yellow bodysuit in

Kill Bill), and embarks on her quest for classical blood justice.
Movies like Badlapur and Ek Villain that appropriate violence
(often sexual) against women and let these acts pass without
condemnation or comment (in a limited way by Ek Villain but
overwhelmingly in Badlapur where the male protagonist plays out
his revenge on the female body of the perpetrators wives and
girlfriends through rape and murder) are differentiated from NH10 in
this regard in that the movie establishes gender violence and
expends energy in delving into and punishing it through the female
protagonist.
Questions of morality remain unanswered as the movie reflects on
prevalent conditions of living where a morally correct choice may
not necessarily be the smart decision. The story excavates a
plethora of thematic concerns like the social evil of honor killing, the
contract between the police and those carrying out these acts, the
diverse interpretations of what constitutes public and the private
and the degradation of humanity in acts of violence and when (if at
all) are these acts justified. The feminism in the movie remains
latent and operates not only at the superficial level of an identifiable
female protagonist but resounds in the establishment of a heroism
not defined by ideals of masculinity or a patriarchal interpretation of
strength as merely physical. The troubling binary between the urban
center and the surrounding rural areas that percolates an urban
mindset is hinted at when Arjun demonstrates his naivet by
suggesting that the villagers are dumb and could be easily
threatened by a gun. The police inspector, later in the film, who says
that beyond the spatiality of urbanity, the reach of democracy and
the Law is non-existent and Caste becomes the organizing principle
in such areas, voices a similar viewpoint. Both these assumptions
are critiqued at the level of the narrative, but the film fails at
sufficiently deconstructing the specificity and validity of this binary
relationship.
There is always going to be something that shall remain
unsatisfactorily analyzed by any text. NH10 should be watched and
appreciated for the wins it notches and the gripping way in which it
does this. The decision to agree or disagree with the choices of the
characters is always present to us as viewers, but the manner in
which the film posits the plot and concocts the intersecting
storylines is commendable. NH10 is definitely the pick of the lot
from the recent list of releases because above all, it is entertaining,
meaningful and a satisfactory day at the movies.