As a courtroom drama centred on the Indian lawyer who secured the sentencing of the one surviving terrorist behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam is a predictably effective movie. There’s no dearth of storytelling around this tragedy, so the familiarity — the cultural fatigue — is now used as a weapon. Much like its central character, Prahaar postures, pauses, poses, argues, emotionally manipulates, yells, and wins. Given the subject, it’s hard to get wrong. The background score milks every moment; Lalit Prabhakar plays Ajmal Kasab as a brown-faced monster slowly disintegrating into a man; the CST shooting is recalled and filmed through the eyes of a child; the trauma is amplified so that the fruits of justice taste sweeter. And of course, there’s the patriotic closing argument.
The renowned theatricality of the public prosecutor allows the film to be theatrical. But Rajkummar Rao does a decent job of not reducing the role to a slew of imitations. The clipped and nasal voice aside, he mostly plays Nikam as a no-nonsense and dry veteran who learns about feelings during the case. He softens despite the high-pitched rhetoric; there’s a sense that he was passionate about winning until the trial makes him passionate about his craft. Rao doesn’t overplay the aura of invincibility that protagonists of this stature are bestowed with; he trusts his work to do the talking. It’s a tried-and-tested biopic template: his professional life (the famous two-year-long trial) is intercut with his personal life. There’s nothing ‘untold’ about his story, but even Nikam’s domestic vulnerability — his struggles as a workaholic who has no time for his family — is staged as a superpower. Like a soldier at the border whose ailing wife (Wamiqa Gabbi) understands the stakes and sacrifices of his job, he is simply necessary.
I like that the writing tries to balance some of the playing-to-the-gallery parts. Nikam’s flaw is that he’s too busy doing great things, but his fractured relationship with his son (Ritvik Sahore) humanises him a bit. It’s not that he totally gets away with his righteousness. The inclusion of Jaideep Ahlawat’s Zulfiqar Ali — Nikam’s counterpart from across the border — speaks to Ahlawat’s own role in Ikkis as Pakistan’s version of India’s war hero. He’s a patriot who pays the price for wanting to fix his nation, while Ujjwal Nikam is a patriot who is hailed for wanting to heal his nation. Their two scenes together show the difference between a democracy (in 2010 at least) and an autocracy; it brings to mind the America-Soviet Union comparisons from Bridge of Spies, where one state persecutes their spy while the other welcomes theirs.
Sikandar Kher initially plays Kasab’s defense counsel, Abbas Kazmi, as a broad-strokes opponent who risks becoming a bad-Muslim stereotype. He scoffs at witnesses and hides behind the legitimacy of duty. Fortunately, the film gives him a redemption arc of sorts, where he even gets to call out the court’s religious biases while reminding them of his own courage. There’s also the decision to stage Kasab as a brainwashed pawn who is betrayed by his own trainers. His mental deterioration is an interesting choice, given how readily mainstream cinema flattens the depiction of evil. The film does succumb to a few old habits: a random training montage, some smirking reaction shots, a handful of hallucinatory breakdowns, and the foreign villain being humbled and guilted by the goodness of India (“Eid is celebrated here?”).
But there is an asterisk. Since breaking the fourth wall is the norm for 26/11 dramas these days, it’s time to address the baby elephant in the room. Films like this can no longer be viewed and reviewed for how they’re made; it’s equally important to ask yourself why they’re made. The intent is very much a part of the craft, particularly when the genre puts national identity to the fore. It’s tempting to see Prahaar as a product of its period — Kasab was sentenced in 2010 and hanged in 2012. But the language is conspicuously modern (or ‘New Indian’) and opportunistic. In stark contrast to courtroom dramas revolving around sexual assault and the myth of the perfect victim, the country is presented as the perfect victim in war movies and geopolitical thrillers.
It’s essential to ask yourself why democracy and fairness and constitutional processes are mentioned so often. Ask yourself why a commercial biopic with “untold story” in its title makes you wary. Ask yourself about the timing of a persuasive film; ask yourself about the optics of Ujjwal Nikam’s legacy today, especially in context of his political affiliations. Ask yourself if it’s sincere storytelling or efficient whitewashing. Ask yourself if the makers are only focusing on the ‘how’ and burying the ‘why’ under the grandstanding and crowd-pleasing monologues. Ask yourself, as a cinephile, if the name of the director-cinematographer is liberating or disappointing.
Ask yourself if the explicit nature of the violence and the catharsis supply the narrative or incite the current conscience of the nation. And ask yourself if the lead actor’s journey — from winning the national award as a slain human-rights lawyer in Shahid (2012) to winning the case as a public prosecutor in Prahaar — is an accurate reflection of India and Hindi cinema in the last decade. If you, like me, expected to hear or see Shahid Azmi briefly in this ‘shared universe,’ perhaps the joke is on us. Because movies like these are designed to drown out such laments and questions with applause.